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This coin is the most recently released issue of all the coins in the first edition of the US Modern Coins top-100 list. The coin was announced just as the U.S. Mint was affirming a commitment to creating coins of the highest level of artistic excellence. This coin was a demonstration of that goal. When President Theodore Roosevelt sought to redesign U.S. coinage during his presidency, he enlisted the services of Augustus Saint-Gaudens, one of the preeminent sculptors of the era. Beginning with the $20 gold piece in 1907, Saint-Gaudens produced a phenomenal design to be rendered in high relief. It was agreed that the coins were magnificent, but they were impractical for production because they required many, repeated strikes from coinage dies to show full detail. During one experimental attempt to produce high-relief coinage, the diameter of the $20 coin was reduced from 34 to 27 millimeters, the size of a $10 gold piece, and its thickness was doubled. It was soon discovered, though, that for this reduced-diameter version to enter production, Congress would need to legislate a change to the $20 coin’s specifications. Testing along these lines was abandoned, and ultimately the coin was issued in lowered relief. Two of these reduced-diameter 1907 Ultra High Relief $20 gold coins were retained and are now in the National Numismatic Collection at the Smithsonian Institution. In 2008, new Mint Director Edmund Moy wished to bring this coin back as a bullion issue to display the capabilities of today’s modern mints, as this early 20th-century work was widely considered the high-water mark of U.S. coinage design. The plan was announced in early 2008: a pure gold, .9999 fine version of the double-thick Ultra High Relief would be issued as part of the American Eagle Bullion program. There was to be no cap on the coin’s mintage. Step by step throughout the year, the Mint reported on its progress. In a series of feasibility tests, they discovered that the coin could be struck with just two blows of the coinage dies. Test pieces were displayed amidst much fanfare at the 2008 American Numismatic Association’s World’s Fair of Money, and the exhibit became an interactive feature on the U.S. Mint’s Web site. At noon on January 22, 2009, the coins went on sale. In a soaring bullion market, the one-ounce gold coin was priced at $1,189, with a limit of just one coin per household. The Mint would later announce that first-day sales alone totaled $33.7 million. In early February, the coins began to trickle out from the Mint and dribbled into the marketplace throughout the year. Significant back orders and fulfillment issues meant that customers didn’t know when the coin they ordered would be received. Dealers wanting to make an active secondary market in the issue were hampered by the one-coin-per-customer order limit. It was a challenge to get any kind of quantity of the coin. Even though speculator buzz quelled, the coin remained the most-talked-about issue of 2009, more so than even the redesigned Lincoln cent. By the end of the year, 115,178 had been sold. As a stand-alone $20 coinage issue and as a bit of an outcast from the rest of the American gold eagle series, the future prospects for this coin seem unclear. If eagle and modern commemorative collectors both embrace it, though, there is no doubt it will become a classic.
Garrett, Jeff; Schechter, Scott. 100 Greatest US Modern Coins (Kindle Locations 1191-1195). Ingram Distribution. Kindle Edition.