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Message:: [QUOTE="johnmilton, post: 4186777, member: 101855"]Since the 1907 High Relief coins had to be struck three times to bring up the design, the alignment and the dies had to be precise. Otherwise the devices could be doubled or they could be rendered less sharp or “mushy.” To achieve this, the thinking was that the same die pair had to used for each of the strikes. Even if a new set of dies was supposed to be identical with the dies used for the first or second strike, any variation would impair the quality of the coins. When a coin is struck, the resulting surfaces are hard. If the coin is to be struck again, the planchet has be heated to soften it again to make the metal maluable. Actually the demands of commerce required that millions of double eagles had to be made. If you look at the total mintages for all U.S. gold coins issued from 1795 to 1933 you will see that about half of them were double eagles. This is especially impressive you remember that the double eagle was not introduced until 1850. Although people did not run around with double eagles in their pockets, large numbers of them were moved around in the banking system, including the international banking system. Large numbers of them survived, despite FDR's surrender order, because they were in Europe. I remember reading a message that one of the mint officials wrote to Theordore Roosevlt after theh 1907 High Relief coins were made. He told Roosevelt in no uncertain terms that the size and capcity of the U.S. Mint System would have to be radically increased if the mint were to continue making the High Relief double eagles. Roosevelt saw the folly in that and backed down. He got his "pet babies" but in a very limited quantity.[/QUOTE]

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