Saint-Gaudens Double Eagle

The Saint-Gaudens Double Eagle is a $20 gold coin celebrated for its high-relief, sculptural artistry, a dramatic departure from the more conventional coin designs that preceded it. It is frequently cited by numismatists as the finest coin design in American history.

Collectors seek it both for its beauty and its role in the final chapter of circulating U.S. gold coinage, which ended abruptly in 1933. It is closely tied to its immediate successor and final-year counterpart, the famous (and largely melted) 1933 Double Eagle.

President Theodore Roosevelt, dissatisfied with the artistic quality of American coinage, commissioned renowned sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens around 1905 to redesign U.S. gold coins in a neoclassical style inspired by ancient Greek coinage. The result was an extremely high-relief double eagle first struck in small numbers in 1907, so dramatically sculpted that it required multiple strikes and was impractical for mass production.

The design was quickly modified to a lower relief for regular circulation, remaining in production, with some interruptions and design tweaks (including the addition of "IN GOD WE TRUST" starting in 1908), until 1933, when gold coinage for circulation ended following Executive Order 6102 and the U.S. departure from the domestic gold standard.

The obverse shows a full-length figure of Liberty striding forward, hair windblown, holding a torch in her raised right hand and an olive branch in her left, with the U.S. Capitol and rays of sunlight in the background and thirteen stars along the upper rim. The reverse depicts a majestic eagle in flight above a rising sun, with "UNITED STATES OF AMERICA" and "TWENTY DOLLARS" around the rim.

The coin is 34 mm in diameter and struck in 90% gold with a reeded edge; ultra-high-relief 1907 pieces are dramatically more sculptural and three-dimensional than the standard-relief coins struck from late 1907 onward. Mint marks (D or S) appear above the date on the obverse, just above the Capitol building; Philadelphia coins have no mint mark.

Common-date Saint-Gaudens Double Eagles from the 1920s trade largely based on their gold content with a moderate numismatic premium, and are popular as an accessible way to own pre-1933 U.S. gold. Certain dates, particularly low-mintage Denver and San Francisco issues from the 1920s and early 1930s, are considerably rarer and command strong premiums.

The ultra-high-relief 1907 pattern and early high-relief issues are extremely valuable and sought after by advanced collectors, sometimes reaching into the hundreds of thousands of dollars for exceptional examples. Condition (strike sharpness and surface preservation) heavily influences value, since the design's fine details wear and mark easily.