1907 Indian Head Eagle, Rolled Edge

Roosevelt's coin

In 1904 President Theodore Roosevelt set out to make American coins beautiful, and he turned to Augustus Saint-Gaudens, the country's foremost sculptor. Roosevelt had firm ideas. 'I feel very strongly that on at least one coin we ought to have the Indian feather headdress,' he wrote to the artist in early 1907.

Saint-Gaudens designed both sides of the new $10 eagle. Liberty wears a feathered Native American headdress; her head was based on a model he had sculpted but not used for his statue of Victory. The reverse shows an eagle standing on a bundle of arrows with an olive branch, a design he had first conceived for the $20 double eagle. Around the edge, instead of reeding, run 46 raised stars.

Saint-Gaudens died on August 3, 1907, without seeing either of his gold coin designs adapted for regular coinage. Roosevelt pressed the Mint to get the new coins out regardless of the difficulties, and the difficulties were considerable.

Three tries in one autumn

The first version, now called the Wire Rim, was in high relief with no border. When it was struck, metal squeezed out between the die and the collar and formed a thin fin around the edge. The coins would not stack properly for counting, and officials feared the fin would wear away and leave the coins underweight. About 500 were struck.

Making the star edge was a problem of its own. On August 14, 1907, acting Philadelphia Mint Superintendent Albert Norris wrote that 'this relief work on the edge of the coin is something entirely new to us.' The Mint built a three-part collar, but 46 stars do not divide evenly by three, so one segment had irregular spacing, with the last two stars larger than the others.

Chief Engraver Charles Barber's fix was to cut a defined rim into the hubs. The relief was now low enough for ordinary presses, the coins stacked, and the reverse kept the small periods at the ends of its inscriptions. Roosevelt and the Treasury secretary approved, and in late September 1907 the Philadelphia Mint struck 31,500 of these Rolled Edge eagles, according to research by Roger Burdette and Jeff Reichenberger; another source gives 32,000.

They were never released. Superintendent John Landis complained that the coins were 'indefinite in detail and outline, not being at all sharp and looking like imperfect coins or coins that have been sweated.' A third version by Saint-Gaudens' assistant Henry Hering, with lower relief and no periods, looked better, and Roosevelt approved it in early October. In November 1907 the new Mint Director, Frank A. Leach, ordered the Rolled Edge coins destroyed, saving only about 50 for collectors, Mint officials, museums and well-connected insiders. None went to the public.

The Mint Director's coin

Frank Aleamon Leach was a California newspaper publisher who became Supervisor of the San Francisco Mint in 1897. After the 1906 earthquake and fire he made heroic efforts to save the Mint building and the bullion inside it. In 1907 he was appointed Director of the Mint, and he shaped the final production of both of Saint-Gaudens' gold designs.

Leach acquired this coin in 1907, the year he ordered the rest of the Rolled Edge eagles melted. After his death in 1929 it passed to Abraham Powell Leach, then in 1962 to Florence Plant Leach, then in 2000 to Colonel George M. Monroe. In all that time it was never publicly offered, and collectors did not know it existed.

From a family heirloom to $2.4 million

The coin surfaced at auction in January 2011. 'The appearance in the [January] 2011 [...] auction of an unknown superb specimen of this issue caused a sensation,' wrote John Dannreuther in his reference on U.S. proof gold coins. It realized $2,185,000, then a record for an Indian Head eagle, to an agent bidding for Texas collector Bob R. Simpson.

Simpson held it until January 2024, when a coin firm announced it had acquired the coin; the price was not disclosed. Its chief executive called it 'a museum class ultra rarity that represents the pinnacle of coin collecting.'

On October 2, 2025, the first day of a four-day sale in Dallas, the coin sold for $2,400,000, a new auction record for the issue. It remains one of the two satin-finish proof Rolled Edge eagles that have been traced.

Proof, pattern or something in between

Most Rolled Edge eagles are weakly struck. David Akers wrote that the typical example is 'rather weak, particularly at Miss Liberty's ear and on the eagle's wing and trailing leg and claw.' The Leach coin is the opposite: every feather of the eagle shows, even at the highest point of the left wing, and so does the period after LIBERTY on the headband, a detail most people never see. Its surfaces are light yellow-gold and satiny with heavy die-polish lines.

That sharpness has fed decades of speculation that it was a trial piece. Jeff Garrett and Ron Guth wrote that it 'may be some sort of pattern or trial piece, and was obviously not made for the general public to buy,' and that it was probably struck on a medal press. Its edge shows the same irregular star arrangement as two Rolled Edge eagles in the Smithsonian that are believed to be true patterns. The grading service has not confirmed pattern status.

The whole Rolled Edge issue sits on the line between pattern and coin. It is still listed in the standard pattern reference, but Roger Burdette's research in the National Archives shows the coins were meant for circulation, and most numismatists now treat them as regular issues.

Sources disagree on how many satin proofs exist. The 2025 catalog traces two, both PCGS PR67: this coin, and one first offered at auction in July 2002 and later offered by a dealer for $3 million in October 2015. A third proof, uncertified, appeared at auction in 1972 and later belonged to collector Harry W. Bass Jr., who accidentally left it in an airport while running for a plane; its whereabouts are unknown. The firm that bought the Leach coin in 2024 described it as 'the only known proof striking example in existence.'

The numbers

Mintage

Rolled Edge: 31,500 struck by one account, 32,000 by another; about 50 saved, and PCGS gives a net mintage of 42. Satin-finish proofs: no record

Known survivors

Rolled Edge, all kinds: about 41 (PCGS estimate). Satin-finish proofs: 2 traced, plus 1 lost

Weight

About 16.7 grams (16.70 to 16.718 g by source)

Diameter

About 27 mm (26.80 and 26.92 mm by source)

Composition

90% gold, 10% copper; 0.48375 troy oz of gold

Edge

46 raised stars

Designer

Augustus Saint-Gaudens; rim by Charles E. Barber

Timeline

1. 1904

   President Theodore Roosevelt begins pressing for a redesign of U.S. coinage and enlists Augustus Saint-Gaudens.

2. Aug 3, 1907

   Saint-Gaudens dies before his gold designs are adapted for coinage.

3. Aug 14, 1907

   Acting Superintendent Albert Norris reports the trouble of making a collar for the raised-star edge.

4. 1907

   About 500 high-relief Wire Rim eagles are struck.

5. Sep 1907

   In late September the Philadelphia Mint strikes 31,500 Rolled Edge eagles on regular presses.

6. Sep 13, 1907

   Date on a framed document signed by Superintendent John Landis that accompanied a third proof, stating it was the first piece struck of the new design.

7. Oct 1907

   Roosevelt approves Henry Hering's lower-relief No Periods design for regular coinage.

8. Nov 1907

   Mint Director Frank A. Leach orders the Rolled Edge eagles melted, saving about 50. Leach keeps this proof.

9. 1908

   Congress requires the motto IN GOD WE TRUST, left off the 1907 design.

10. 1929

    Leach dies; the coin passes to Abraham Powell Leach.

11. 1962

    The coin passes to Florence Plant Leach.

12. Aug 1972

    A third, uncertified proof appears at auction and later belongs to Harry W. Bass Jr., who loses it in an airport.

13. 2000

    The coin passes to Colonel George M. Monroe.

14. Jul 2002

    The other traced satin proof is offered at auction, graded PR66 by NGC; PCGS later grades it PR67 in July 2012.

15. Jan 2011

    The Leach coin is offered publicly for the first time and realizes $2,185,000 for Bob R. Simpson.

16. Jan 2024

    A coin firm announces it has acquired the Leach coin from the Simpson collection.

17. Oct 2, 2025

    The coin realizes $2,400,000 at auction in Dallas, a record for the issue.

The world in 1907

• Jan 23, 1907

  Charles Curtis of Kansas becomes the first Native American U.S. senator.

• Apr 17, 1907

  Ellis Island has its busiest day ever, in a year when 1.1 million immigrants arrive.

• Apr 26, 1907

  Roosevelt opens the Jamestown Exposition in Virginia, marking 300 years since the English landing.

• Oct 22, 1907

  The Panic of 1907 begins as the Knickerbocker Trust Company suspends operations after a bank run.

• Nov 16, 1907

  Oklahoma is admitted to the Union as the 46th state.

• Dec 6, 1907

  The Monongah mining disaster kills 362 coal miners in West Virginia.

• Dec 16, 1907

  The Great White Fleet leaves Hampton Roads, Virginia, on a 14-month voyage around the world.

Price record

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, 1907 Indian Head Eagle, Rolled Edge is number 15 of 100 in the coins entries of the FLOAT 100. 96 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (11 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• Theodore Roosevelt personally asked for the Indian feather headdress: 'I feel very strongly that on at least one coin we ought to have the Indian feather headdress.'
• The 46 stars on the edge would not divide evenly among the three parts of the collar, so one section has uneven spacing, with two larger stars at the end.
• One of the few proof Rolled Edge eagles was accidentally left in an airport by its owner as he ran for a plane. It has not been seen since.
• The Mint Director who ordered more than 31,000 of these coins melted kept this one for himself.
• The proof shows the period after LIBERTY on the headband, a design detail so weak on regular coins that few collectors know it is there.
• Before running the Mint, Frank Leach was a California newspaper publisher, and he helped save the San Francisco Mint and its bullion after the 1906 earthquake.
• Oklahoma became the 46th state on November 16, 1907, the same month the Rolled Edge eagles with their 46 edge stars were ordered melted.