Owner Comments:
Most numismatists believe that the 1907 High Relief $20 gold piece is the most beautiful U.S. coin. This piece was the “pet baby” of President Theodore Roosevelt who started the “Renaissance of American Coinage” which extended from 1907 to 1921.
In 1905 President Roosevelt met with Augustus St. Gaudens who was viewed as the greatest American artist of his era. Roosevelt was very dissatisfied with the designs of the coins which were then in circulation and wanted to introduce a series of U.S. coinage designs that would be on a par with America’s emerging greatness. The president asked St. Gaudens to redesign every U.S. coin from the cent to the double eagle. St. Gaudens had more assignments than he could complete, and he was also becoming progressively ill with terminal cancer. Therefore he drew up the designs and assigned an artist, Henry Herring, who worked in the St. Gaudens studio, to execute the models.
St. Gaudens and Roosevelt were aware that they would face bureaucratic problems at the U.S. mint. Chief mint engraver, Charles Barber, had held his office for over 27 years. Barber took a dim view of an interfering president and an outside artist taking his job. This resulted in protracted feuds between mint personnel and the St. Gaudens studio. In my view both sides had their points. Improving the generally dull appearance of the then current U.S. coinage was long overdue, but the coins also had to be economical to produce and acceptable in the world of commerce.
After considerable wrangling President Roosevelt got his way … for about month. During November and for a brief period in January 1908 the U.S. mint went on a 24/7 schedule and produced a total of 12,367 double eagles in high relief. The coins were stuck on a medal press, and it took from three to five blows (official accounts vary) from the dies to bring up the design. The coins were made in batches of 1,000 because the same set of dies had to be used to avoid doubling of the devices. If a die were to break between each strike, there was a risk that the replacement die would not be exactly the same. Between each strike, the planchets were annealed to soften them for the next blow from the dies.
The resulting coins were very beautiful but also very impractical. The coins became collectors' items from the the time that they were introduced, and people were willing to pay more than face value for them in 1908. After this brief run, Roosevelt agreed that the High Relief coins were not practical, and the lower relief coins took their place.
The coin pictured above is a superb example of the 1907 High Relief $20 coin. It is virtually mark free surfaces, and the soft satiny luster that typical of this piece. I have called these coins “The most expensive 'common' coin in the U.S. series." More than half of the original mintage survives, but most any example of the coin is priced well within 5 figures because of demand.