By William E. Hagans, Coins Magazine November 16, 2009

When my wife and I first heard that the U.S. Mint would produce a 2009 replica of the Saint-Gaudens ultra high relief double eagle gold coin last fall, we talked about arranging our finances to make sure we would not miss this unprecedented opportunity. I’m sure many coin collectors made similar calculations with their budgets when the program was first announced.

To hold in your hands what is considered America’s most beautiful coin was too much of a temptation—and owning gold in the current economic climate seemed like a very good idea. Knowing that we would never be able to purchase one of the original ultra high-relief coins, which were never in circulation and sell for astronomical prices, made the new coin even more desirable and would make-up for a dream deferred.

We were momentarily disappointed to learn that the coin would be reduced in size from the original, but at least it would be a true troy ounce of gold, unlike the original 90 percent gold coin. Another disappointment was that the new coin employs the motto “IN GOD WE TRUST,” which was absent from the 1907 coins.

When the coin arrived, we were amazed at its beauty and were pleased that it came in a very nice wooden display box, yet a bit miffed to realize that, for security reasons, we would not be about to utilize the packaging much. Like other collectors, we were frustrated in delays in shipping, the security of delivery, worries over whether the Mint would honor the price quoted at ordering, and the back-ordering of the accompanying book—which finally arrived and is very informative.



*** President Theodore Roosevelt and sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens met in the first years of the 20th century. Of his inaugural medal, which he arranged for Saint-Gaudens to design—with the aid of Adolph Weinman—in 1905, the president wrote to Saint-Gaudens, “…My dear fellow, I am very grateful to you, and I am very proud to have been able to associate you in some way with my administration. I like the medals immensely, but that goes without saying; for the work is eminently characteristic of you. Thank heaven we have at least some artistic work of permanent worth done for the government!… I don’t want to slop over; but I feel as if we had suddenly imported a piece of Greece of the 5th or 4th centuries B.C. into America.”

The inaugural medal, which Roosevelt associated with ancient Greek coins, must have inspired him to begin a radical change in U.S. coinage—by having coins designed not by the Mint staff, but by talented sculptors. In a letter to Treasury Secretary Leslie M. Shaw, dated Dec. 27, 1904, President Roosevelt wrote, “Would it be possible, without asking permission from Congress, to employ a man like Saint-Gaudens to give us a coinage that would have some beauty?” In the same letter, the president, never one to withhold his opinion, declared that the circulating coins were “artistically atrocious hideousness.”

Charles E. Barber, chief engraver at the Mint, had designed many of the coins in use at the time: the Liberty Head nickel (1883), and the Barber dime, quarter, and half-dollar coins of 1892. Barber designed the 1892 coins despite an effort to open U.S. coin design to competition—with Barber and Saint-Gaudens making up two of three on the jury. Can there be any doubt, given the letter he penned to Secretary Shaw, how Roosevelt felt about Barber’s designs?

By Nov. 6, 1905, Roosevelt had engaged Saint-Gaudens in the redesign of the eagle and double eagle gold coins. He wrote to the sculptor on that date, “How is that old gold coinage design getting along? I want to make a suggestion. It seems to me worth while to try for a really good coinage: though I suppose there will be a revolt about it! I was looking at some gold coins of Alexander the Great today, and I was struck by their high relief.…”

On Nov. 11, Saint-Gaudens replied to the president’s letter: “You hit the nail on the head.… Of course the great coins…are the Greek ones you speak of, just as the great medals are those of the fifteen century.… Nothing would please me more than to make the attempt in the direction of the heads of Alexander, but the authorities on modern monetary requirements would, I fear, ‘throw fits’…, if the thing was done now.… Perhaps an inquiry from you would not receive the antagonistic reply from those who have the say in such matters that would certainly be made to me.”

As an immigrant from the Irish Potato Famine who was apprenticed as a cameo maker at the age of 13, the sculptor was now corresponding with the man who held the highest office in the land about Greek coins. Saint-Gaudens could not have missed the significance of this, and his story can be added to those who came to America and, through hard work and sacrifice, became self-made men—the embodiment of the “American Dream.”

Saint-Gaudens and Charles E. Barber had locked horns before—while on the previously mentioned panel to judge coin designs in 1892. They also had their differences the following year. Saint-Gaudens had designed the award medal for the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893. At the last minute, the reverse of his design was replaced with one by Barber. This occurred because of a scandal over Saint-Gaudens’s use of nudity. Roosevelt, who was determined to rattle the cage of the “Money Trust,” knew the hazards to his presidential agenda lurking in Congress. His caution is reflected in his previously mentioned letter to the Treasury secretary of Dec. 27, 1904.

The two men’s fears came to fruition. Saint-Gaudens’s high relief designs were reduced to the normal Mint standard at Barber’s insistence. Roosevelt felt the wrath of Congress, which mirrored America’s outrage over the omission of the motto “IN GOD WE TRUST” from the original 1907 gold coins. As a result, a law was enacted by Congress in 1908 that made it mandatory that the motto be used on all U.S. coinage.

Roosevelt’s opponents must have taken great pleasure in rebuking him, especially since the transformation of U.S. coinage had become his passion, as the letter below illustrates. The president and sculptor had “simply” attempted a cleaner design, in keeping with Greek coins, which are characterized by a minimum of legends and mottoes.



*** Roosevelt, who had a knack for expressing sarcasm, wrote to Saint-Gaudens on Jan. 6, 1906, as the new coins were being developed: “I have seen [Secretary] Shaw about the coinage and told him that it was my pet baby. We will try it anyway, so you go ahead. Shaw was really very nice about it. Of course he thinks I am a mere crack-brained lunatic on the subject, but he said with great kindness…that there was no earthy objections to having those coins as artistic as the Greeks could desire.… I think it will seriously increase the mortality among the employees of the Mint at seeing such a desecration, but then they will perish in a good cause!”

The sculptor matched the president’s sarcasm, writing on Jan. 9, 1906, “…All right, I shall proceed on the lines we have agreed on. The models are both well in hand, but I assure you I feel mighty cheeky so to speak, in attempting to line up with the Greek things. Well! Whatever I produce cannot be worse than the inanities now displayed on our coins and we will at least have made an attempt in the right direction, and serve the country by increasing the mortality at the Mint.…”



*** After the new ultra high-relief coin of 2009 arrived at our home—and yes, we experienced a lot of the frustrations over the security of the coin upon delivery—was looking through an auction catalog that a fellow collector passed along to me. It was then that it struck me; we know that Roosevelt and Saint-Gaudens had succeeded in their goal of producing “really good coinage,” but more so, they achieved their goal of replicating in modern form and interpretation the great high-relief coins from ancient Greece and its colonies, especially Sicily.

In browsing through the ancient coin catalog, my mind drifted back to the recently arrived coin from the Mint and how it could fit right into the Greek category of ancient coins. It was certainly no accident that president and sculptor, at Roosevelt’s instigation, continually referred to Greek coins in their correspondence. It is also no accident that Saint-Gaudens had at least one book that contained illustrations of Greek coins in his possession.

Of course, no anvil is used to produce modern coins, and today’s gold blanks, shortages and all, are quite uniform. But in terms of beauty of design, the original 1907 coins, with minimal legends and the use of high relief, lived up to the president and sculptor’s dream of creating beautiful coins in the spirit of the best of ancient coinage.



*** There is a sad note that must be added to any discussion of the 1907 gold coinage; Saint-Gaudens was terminally ill with cancer throughout the coins creation and did not live to see either the eagle or double eagle coins circulate. Perhaps as a result of his illness, with time running out, Saint-Gaudens re-worked the “Victory” from his Sherman Monument (1903), which, according to letters he wrote from Paris, he had labored over for months until every fold of “Victory’s” gown was exactly as he wished. Previous plans to “make the attempt in the direction of the heads of Alexander” were abandoned for a “Liberty” striding forward. He used the same model, the “Goddess-like Miss (Hettie) Anderson,” for the “Liberty” of the double eagle. This is made clear in Saint-Gaudens’s letters to and from Adolph Weinman at the beginning of 1906. It is also obvious that he used the image of “Victory” and Anderson for the double eagle’s obverse design when one reads the sculptor’s unpublished memoirs. The Saint-Gaudens/Weinman correspondence, as are his unpublished memoirs, is in the collection of the Baker Library at Dartmouth College.

Henry Herring, like Weinman another student of Saint-Gaudens and a coin designer in his own right, bore the brunt of Charles Barber’s insistence on lowering the relief of both gold coins. In fairness to Barber, there were practical reasons for the change: the complications of striking high-relief coins for mass production, and the inability of bankers, who would use these gold coins more than the general public, to stack them easily for storage.

A president born to privilege, who came to office with the sadness of McKinley’s assassination, and the immigrant cameo maker, both New Yorkers, achieved their goal, allowing us to take great pride in our national coinage. Those of us fortunate to acquire the Saint-Gaudens ultra high-relief coin can now admire the fruit of their collaboration. There is no comparison between the new coin and the circulated double eagles of the last century.

And without President Roosevelt’s initiative, not only would our coinage lack Saint-Gaudens’s gems, but we would also lack the much admired coins of sculptors that followed him into the realm of U.S. coin design, such as Bela Pratt, Victor Brenner, James and Laura Fraser, Adolph Weinman, John Flanagan, Hermon MacNeil, Charles Keck, and others.

And with the issuing of the ultra high relief coin of 2009, Roosevelt and Saint-Gaudens’s dream deferred—the production by the Mint of well designed coins in high relief—has finally arrived after a wait of more than 100 years.

More Resources:

• Standard Catalog of United States Obsolete Bank Notes 4-CD Set, 1782-1866

• Fascinating Facts, Mysteries & Myths About U.S. Coins

• 2010 Standard Catalog of World Coins 2001-Date, 4th Edition

• State Quarters Deluxe Collector's Folder