1907 Indian Head Eagle, Wire Rim (Periods)

The president's pet crime

In 1904 President Theodore Roosevelt wrote to Treasury Secretary Leslie Shaw that American coins lacked artistic merit and suggested hiring a private artist, the sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, to redesign them. At Roosevelt's direction the Mint commissioned Saint-Gaudens to redo the cent and all four gold coins. Roosevelt called the project his "pet crime."

Early in 1907 Roosevelt pushed for a particular detail. "I feel very strongly that on at least one coin we ought to have the Indian feather headdress," he wrote to the sculptor. "It is distinctly American, and very picturesque." Saint-Gaudens added the war bonnet to a head of Liberty he had modeled for the cent, a head based on the figure of Victory from his Sherman Monument at the entrance to New York's Central Park. On May 25, 1907, the Mint director told Saint-Gaudens that the eagle would carry the feathered head of Liberty with a standing eagle on the reverse.

Not everyone loved the bird. San Francisco Mint Superintendent Frank Leach, asked for his opinion of the standing eagle, wrote that it gave "the impression of a crane in masquerade wearing pantaloons and a cutaway coat." The design went ahead anyway. Collectors since have been similarly divided over the headdress: the historian Walter Breen called it "the absurd addition of a feathered warbonnet," and the art historian Cornelius Vermeule said the coin missed being great because Roosevelt interfered.

A sculptor's death and a deadline

The Mint and Saint-Gaudens had been at odds for months over relief. Chief Engraver Charles E. Barber reported in June 1907 that the plaster models were "not coin relief" and objected to a date written in Roman numerals. Saint-Gaudens sent revised models on June 24, and experimental high-relief pieces struck on July 19 still needed several blows of the press. The Mint sent casts of the dies to the sculptor's home in Cornish, New Hampshire, on July 28. Saint-Gaudens died there of cancer on August 3, 1907.

Roosevelt would not let the coins die with him. On August 7 he ordered the eagle and double eagle designs finished and in production by September 1. The acting Philadelphia superintendent, Albert Norris, defended the engraving staff, asking how they were supposed to strike coins from dies the Bureau had already been told would not work in a coining press. Even the edge was a problem: the collar that raised 46 stars on the edge was new to the Mint, and the machine shop worked overtime to build one.

To comply with the letter of the president's order, Treasury Secretary George Cortelyou had 500 pieces struck on the Mint's high-pressure medal press from the dies made from Saint-Gaudens's earlier models. The historian Roger Burdette has described them as "an 'insurance policy', put in place by Cortelyou against additional presidential rage." Roosevelt saw sample eagles on August 31, said he was satisfied, and asked for more.

Wire rim, periods and a fin

Saint-Gaudens's design had no proper rim, the raised border that protects a coin's surface. On the medal-press coins the field meets the edge at a sharp angle, leaving a thin, raised wire or knife edge, which is where the name Wire Rim comes from. In regular coining presses, excess metal squeezed out as a fin that broke off easily and could leave coins underweight. Barber engraved a rim onto the dies to fix it, producing the Rolled Rim version, of which all but about 50 were melted in November 1907, and then the lower-relief design used for circulation.

All Wire Rim coins come from a single pair of dies. They share three diagnostics: the wire rim itself; raised periods, or interpuncts, before and after the words of each inscription on the reverse, including UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, TEN DOLLARS and the three-line E PLURIBUS UNUM; and a field covered in tiny raised swirls and lines left from finishing the dies. The circulation design that followed dropped the periods. Like all 1907 eagles, the Wire Rim omits IN GOD WE TRUST, an omission that drew public outrage and led Congress in 1908 to require the motto.

Their status has always been ambiguous. Specialists class the Wire Rim as a pattern, Judd-1774, while the standard U.S. coin guidebook lists it as a circulation strike. Some argue all of them are really proofs; one longtime authority notes that every known example was made the same way, so splitting them into proofs and business strikes is incorrect. A few early coins struck with a hastily made three-part edge collar have irregularly spaced edge stars, the last two noticeably larger, and one grading service lists them separately as Irregular Edge Stars. Three of those are in the Smithsonian.

Typical coins are well struck in the centers and weak at the borders, with satiny luster in light yellow or greenish gold, sometimes orange or coppery. Because the unprotected surfaces scratched easily, choice MS64 coins are seen fairly often but true Gems are scarce.

How many were made, and where they went

The famous figure of 500 comes from a 1908 letter from the dealer Henry Chapman to the collector John Garrett, and it was long accepted because Chapman had close Mint connections. Burdette's work in the Mint's records found that 542 were struck: an initial run of 500 in late August and early September 1907, then 42 more between September and December. Seventy were melted in 1914 and 1915, leaving 472.

Most of the coins were handed to government officials and dignitaries or sold to contemporary collectors. They remained available from the Mint at face value until at least 1912. Because they were saved deliberately, survival was high. Published estimates range from 325 to 375, to about 400, to a high of 450.

Top examples have changed hands many times. One coin graded MS67 sold in February 1992 for $26,400 as an ungraded MS65, then for $149,500 in May 2008 and $211,500 in August 2013. Another sold in January 2011 for $230,000. An NGC MS68 that had been off the market for about 25 years, from the collection of Dr. Paul and Rosalie Zito, set the record for the issue at $840,000 in April 2022.

In MS65, the grade of this entry, recent prices have been steady. Gems have sold at auction for between $81,000 and $97,600 since 2023, while coins with the irregular edge stars have brought $164,090 and $180,000 in the same grade.

Saint-Gaudens's design, nearly intact

Breen wrote that the first, wire-rim coins "are the only available gold $10s showing the Saint-Gaudens' conception in anywhere near their pristine splendor." Every later Indian Head eagle, struck until 1933, carries a design lowered and reworked by Barber and Saint-Gaudens's assistant Henry Hering. For collectors who want the sculptor's version of the coin rather than the Mint's, the Wire Rim is the one to find.

Roosevelt wrote to the sculptor's widow, Augusta, after his death: "I count it as one of the privileges of my administration to have had him make two of our coins." The Wire Rim eagle, struck in the weeks after that death to satisfy the president's deadline, is the most direct record of what that collaboration produced.

The numbers

Mintage

500 by the traditional figure; 542 by Mint records (500 in August and September, 42 more by December 1907), 70 melted in 1914 and 1915, net 472

Known survivors

325 to 375 by one estimate, about 400 by another, 450 by a grading service's estimate (about 125 in MS65 or better)

Weight

16.70 grams

Diameter

26.80 mm

Composition

90% gold, 10% copper

Edge

46 raised stars

Designer

Augustus Saint-Gaudens

Catalog number

Judd-1774 in one reference; some recent auction catalogs list Wire Rim coins as Judd-1901

Timeline

1. 1904

   Theodore Roosevelt complains that U.S. coins lack artistic merit and proposes hiring Augustus Saint-Gaudens.

2. Feb 1907

   Saint-Gaudens adds the Indian headdress to his head of Liberty at Roosevelt's urging.

3. May 25, 1907

   The Mint director confirms the eagle will use the feathered Liberty head and the standing eagle.

4. Jun 7, 1907

   Chief Engraver Charles Barber reports that Saint-Gaudens's models are not in coin relief.

5. Jul 19, 1907

   The Mint strikes experimental high-relief eagles that need multiple blows.

6. Aug 3, 1907

   Saint-Gaudens dies at Cornish, New Hampshire.

7. Aug 7, 1907

   Roosevelt orders the eagle and double eagle in production by September 1.

8. Aug 14, 1907

   Acting superintendent Albert Norris reports the Mint is building a collar for the raised edge stars.

9. Aug 26, 1907

   Barber sends an irregular-edge-star Wire Rim coin and a new Rolled Rim coin to Superintendent John Landis.

10. Aug 31, 1907

    Roosevelt views sample eagles and is satisfied.

11. Nov 9, 1907

    Mint Director Frank Leach orders all but 50 of the Rolled Rim eagles melted.

12. Dec 1907

    The last 42 Wire Rim eagles are struck, bringing the total to 542 by Mint records.

13. 1908

    Dealer Henry Chapman writes to John Garrett that 500 Wire Rim eagles were struck.

14. 1912

    Wire Rim eagles are still available from the Mint at face value.

15. 1914

    Seventy Wire Rim eagles are melted in 1914 and 1915, leaving 472.

16. Feb 1992

    A Wire Rim eagle later graded MS67 sells for $26,400.

17. Jan 2011

    A Wire Rim eagle sells at auction for $230,000.

18. Apr 2022

    An NGC MS68 Wire Rim eagle sets the record for the issue at $840,000.

19. Jan 14, 2026

    An MS65 with irregular edge stars brings $164,090 at auction.

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.

• Aug 28, 1907

  James Casey founds the American Messenger Service in Seattle, the forerunner of UPS.

• Sep 7, 1907

  The liner Lusitania makes her maiden voyage from Liverpool to New York.

• Oct 22, 1907

  During the Panic of 1907, a bank run forces New York's Knickerbocker Trust Company to suspend operations.

• Dec 6, 1907

  The Monongah mine explosion in West Virginia kills 362 workers.

• Dec 16, 1907

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

• Dec 31, 1907

  The first electric ball drops in Times Square.

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, Wire Rim (Periods) is number 76 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 (55 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• The 46 stars on the edge counted Oklahoma before it was a state; its admission was already scheduled for later in 1907.
• Saint-Gaudens never saw a Wire Rim eagle. He died on August 3, 1907, and the coins were struck later that month.
• A Mint superintendent said the standing eagle looked like a crane in masquerade wearing pantaloons and a cutaway coat.
• The Mint asked its counterparts in Paris for help with the raised-star edge collar and got none that worked; its own machine shop finally built one.
• Wire Rim eagles could still be bought from the Mint for $10 each as late as 1912.
• Roosevelt left IN GOD WE TRUST off the coin because he thought putting God's name on money was sacrilegious; Congress overruled him in 1908.