1907 Saint-Gaudens Double Eagle (Arabic Numerals)

A president's war on ugly money

On December 27, 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt wrote to his Treasury Secretary, Leslie Mortier Shaw: "I think the state of our coinage is artistically of atrocious hideousness. Would it be possible, without asking permission of Congress, to employ a man like Saint-Gaudens to give us a coinage which would have some beauty?" Augustus Saint-Gaudens was the country's leading sculptor and Roosevelt's friend.

Saint-Gaudens had sworn off the Mint once already. In 1892 his medal for the World's Columbian Exposition was attacked as obscene, and the reverse was replaced with one by Mint engraver Charles E. Barber. He agreed to Roosevelt's project anyway, and the Mint engaged him for the cent and the four gold coins, the denominations that could be changed without Congress. No U.S. coin had ever been designed by anyone outside the Mint.

Roosevelt had been admiring the high-relief gold of ancient Greece. Saint-Gaudens proposed a figure of Liberty "striding forward as if on a mountaintop," torch raised, drapery flowing: "My idea is to make it a living thing, and typical of progress." In May 1906 he asked to put the date in Roman numerals. Shaw objected that "we should confine ourselves to the English language." Roosevelt overruled him.

From high relief to a coin that could be made

Saint-Gaudens was dying of cancer, and much of the work fell to his assistant, Henry Hering. The first dies, from the sculptor's plaster, produced about two dozen patterns that took up to nine blows of a medal press each; these are the Ultra High Relief pieces. A second set of dies with lower relief still needed three blows. On May 8, 1907, Roosevelt told the sculptor it had "proved hitherto impossible to strike them by one blow." Saint-Gaudens replied: "Evidently it is no trifling matter to make Greek art conform with modern numismatics."

Saint-Gaudens died on August 3, 1907. Roosevelt ordered the Mint to finish the design and have the coin circulating by September 1. When Hering finally brought a new set of models on September 28, Barber rejected them as uncoinable and began his own low-relief version of the design.

On November 18 Roosevelt ordered the second-set dies put into use, telling the Mint to "begin the new issue, even if it takes you all day to strike one piece!" Over 12,000 High Relief coins with the Roman date MCMVII followed. Meanwhile Barber finished his reworking, with the relief greatly lowered so the coin could be struck in one blow on the Mint's production presses. Among his changes, he replaced MCMVII with the Arabic numerals 1907.

The Mint struck 361,667 of the low-relief coins in 1907 and released them at the end of December. Barber's alterations were denounced by the sculptor's family and by Hering, and Barber's reputation has suffered for them since. A later numismatist offered a defense: "a mint is a coin factory, not an artist's studio."

How to identify one

Liberty stands facing forward, torch in her right hand and olive branch in her left, her left foot on a rock, with the U.S. Capitol and the rays of the sun at her side. LIBERTY runs across the top, split by the torch, and 46 small stars circle the rim, one for each state in 1907. The date 1907 sits at lower right above the rock, with Saint-Gaudens's monogram, ASG, below it. The reverse shows an eagle in flight across a rising sun beneath UNITED STATES OF AMERICA and TWENTY DOLLARS.

What sets this coin apart from the High Relief that preceded it is easy to see: a plain Arabic date instead of MCMVII, and a much flatter design. There is no IN GOD WE TRUST anywhere on the coin. E PLURIBUS UNUM appears in raised letters on the edge, separated by stars. All were struck at Philadelphia, so there is no mintmark.

Barber's flattening makes many coins look weakly struck, especially on Liberty, though the numismatist David Akers wrote that the strike is usually sharp and the dies simply lacked detail. Luster is soft and frosty, and color runs from greenish gold to orange, with some rose and coppery examples.

Proofs are a different matter. One estimate puts proof production at 40 to 50 pieces, but fewer than seven proofs of the No Motto type have been certified, and another numismatist knows of a single matte proof, from a famous cased set. The PCGS MS65 grade of this entry describes an ordinary business strike.

Saved, shipped abroad, brought home

As the first coins of a much-discussed new design, the 1907 low-relief pieces were widely saved as souvenirs, which is why so many survive in high grades. Double eagles of this era rarely circulated at home; they were used for international payments and held by banks. Many 1907s went to European banks, and they still turn up in gold shipments returning to the United States.

Those overseas hoards changed the coin's reputation. Once considered scarcer, it is now plentiful: a leading numismatist estimated the Mint State population at 45,000 to 60,000 or more in 2004, and one grading service estimates about 55,833 survivors in MS60 or better.

Gem quality is where the type thins out. The same grading service estimates 6,000 survivors in MS65 or better, and one grading service alone had graded 816 examples MS65 at the time of writing. In MS65, PCGS-graded coins have recently sold at auction for $4,800 to about $5,700; in MS67, sales from 2006 to 2016 ran from $27,600 to $60,375, and one example with an additional quality sticker brought $276,000 in 2022.

The $276,000 coin had sold before. The same PCGS MS67 coin, certificate 25578861, had sold for $60,375 in August 2011 before reaching $276,000 at auction in May 2022.

The design that outlived the coin

Congress, angered by the missing motto, ordered IN GOD WE TRUST restored, and the No Motto design that began with these coins lasted only into 1908. In 1912 two stars were added for New Mexico and Arizona. The double eagle was struck until 1933, when Franklin Roosevelt's gold recall ended it and sent millions of coins to the melting pot.

Roosevelt never wavered. In January 1908 he wrote that it was "the best coin that has been struck for two thousand years." Many collectors agree that Saint-Gaudens's double eagle is the most beautiful American coin.

The obverse returned in 1986 on American gold bullion coins, with stars added for Alaska and Hawaii. In November 2025 the Mint announced a 2026 gold reissue dated in Roman numerals, as Saint-Gaudens wanted, for the 250th anniversary of American independence.

The numbers

Mintage

361,667 (Philadelphia only); proofs estimated at 40 to 50, though far fewer are confirmed

Known survivors

About 90,833 in all grades, 55,833 in MS60 or better and 6,000 in MS65 or better (one grading service's estimates); a 2004 estimate put the Mint State population at 45,000 to 60,000 or more

Weight

33.40 g (sources also give 33.436 g)

Diameter

34.00 mm

Composition

90% gold, 10% copper

Edge

Lettered E PLURIBUS UNUM, with stars

Designer

Augustus Saint-Gaudens and Henry Hering; modifications by Charles E. Barber

This coin's grade

PCGS MS65

Timeline

1. 1892

   Saint-Gaudens's Columbian Exposition medal reverse is replaced with a design by Barber; the sculptor vows to avoid the Mint.

2. Dec 27, 1904

   Roosevelt writes that U.S. coinage is of "atrocious hideousness" and asks for Saint-Gaudens.

3. Nov 1905

   Roosevelt suggests the new gold coins be struck in high relief, like ancient Greek coins.

4. May 1906

   Saint-Gaudens asks for a Roman-numeral date; Treasury Secretary Shaw objects and Roosevelt overrules him.

5. Dec 1906

   Hering delivers coin-sized models to Roosevelt, who calls them "simply splendid."

6. May 8, 1907

   Roosevelt tells Saint-Gaudens the Ultra High Relief design cannot be struck in one blow.

7. Aug 3, 1907

   Augustus Saint-Gaudens dies.

8. Sep 28, 1907

   Hering brings new models; Barber rejects them and starts his own low-relief version.

9. Nov 1, 1907

   Frank Leach takes office as Director of the Mint.

10. Nov 18, 1907

    Roosevelt orders the High Relief coins struck "even if it takes you all day to strike one piece."

11. Dec 1907

    The low-relief Arabic numerals coins, 361,667 struck, are released at the end of the month.

12. 1908

    Congress requires IN GOD WE TRUST on the coin; Roosevelt calls the design "the best coin that has been struck for two thousand years."

13. 1912

    Two stars are added for New Mexico and Arizona.

14. Dec 28, 1933

    Americans are ordered to turn in gold coins; millions of double eagles are later melted.

15. 1986

    Saint-Gaudens's obverse returns on American gold bullion coins.

16. Nov 2006

    A PCGS MS67 example sells at auction for $42,550.

17. Aug 2011

    PCGS MS67 certificate 25578861 sells at auction for $60,375.

18. May 8, 2022

    The same coin brings $276,000, the auction record for the issue.

19. Nov 2025

    The Mint announces a 2026 gold reissue of the design with a Roman-numeral date.

The world in 1907

• Apr 17, 1907

  Ellis Island has its busiest day ever, in a record year of 1.1 million immigrants.

• Sep 7, 1907

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

• Oct 22, 1907

  The Panic of 1907: a run forces New York's Knickerbocker Trust Company to suspend operations.

• Oct 24, 1907

  J.P. Morgan and other financiers pool $25 million to prop up the plunging stock market.

• Nov 16, 1907

  Oklahoma becomes the 46th state.

• Dec 6, 1907

  The Monongah mine explosion in West Virginia kills 362 workers.

• Dec 16, 1907

  The Great White Fleet sets out from Hampton Roads to circle the globe.

• 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 Saint-Gaudens Double Eagle (Arabic Numerals) is number 96 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 (58 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• Saint-Gaudens's Liberty was based on his figure for New York's monument to General William Tecumseh Sherman, and ultimately on the Nike of Samothrace.
• Treasury Secretary Shaw opposed the Roman-numeral date, threatening to dismiss any architect who put a V where a U was meant; the Arabic date on this coin was Barber's change after Saint-Gaudens died.
• Roosevelt left off IN GOD WE TRUST because he felt putting God's name on money that might be spent on crimes was a debasement.
• The coin's 46 stars matched the 46 states; Oklahoma became the 46th on November 16, 1907, weeks before the coin's release.
• The finest 1907 business strike one numismatist has seen is not in a collector's hands but in the Smithsonian, which he rates about MS68.
• Barber feared the High Relief coins came out so well that "the President may demand the continuance of this particular coin."