1907 Ultra High Relief Double Eagle

A president's war on ugly money

On December 27, 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt wrote to his Treasury Secretary, Leslie M. 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?' The coins that could be changed without an act of Congress were the cent and the four gold denominations, and the Mint engaged Augustus Saint-Gaudens to redesign them. No U.S. coin had ever been designed by anyone outside the Mint.

Both men admired the coins of ancient Greece and their deep, sculptural relief. Accounts differ on who first proposed it for the double eagle: one has Roosevelt, in a November 1905 letter, mentioning that he had been studying Greek gold coins; another quotes Saint-Gaudens writing to Roosevelt on November 6, 1905, that he had been looking at gold coins of Alexander the Great and was 'struck by their high relief.' Either way, they agreed the new $20 piece should be in high relief with a high rim to protect it.

Saint-Gaudens had no love for the Mint. In 1892 his design for the World's Columbian Exposition medal was attacked as obscene and replaced with one by Chief Engraver Charles E. Barber, and he swore off work with the Mint for a decade. In January 1906 he wrote to Roosevelt that 'whatever I produce cannot be worse than the inanities now displayed on our coins,' and predicted resistance from Barber, who 'will be found standing in its ruins.'

Treasury Secretary Shaw also balked at the Roman-numeral date, writing that he would 'dismiss the first one who puts a V on a public building where a U is intended.' Roosevelt overruled him, and the coin was dated MCMVII.

Saint-Gaudens's last work

Augustus Saint-Gaudens was born in Dublin on March 1, 1848, to an Irish mother and a French shoemaker father, and was raised in New York City, where he apprenticed as a cameo cutter before studying at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. His Admiral Farragut monument in Madison Square, unveiled in 1881, made his name, and he went on to the Robert Gould Shaw Memorial in Boston and the Sherman monument at the corner of Central Park.

He was diagnosed with cancer in 1900 and worked from his home and studio in Cornish, New Hampshire. As his health failed through 1906, his assistant Henry Hering handled much of the coin work, and Saint-Gaudens had the models made outside the Mint to avoid obstruction. In December 1906 Hering delivered coin-sized models to Roosevelt, who wrote to the sculptor: 'It is simply splendid. I suppose I shall be impeached for it by Congress, but I shall regard that as a very cheap payment!'

The obverse shows Liberty striding forward with a torch in her right hand and an olive branch in her left, the Capitol behind her and the sun's rays at her back, ringed by 46 stars for the 46 states. The figure grew out of the winged Victory Saint-Gaudens made for the Sherman monument, modeled by Hettie Anderson, with the Nike of Samothrace as the ultimate inspiration; another account names Mary Cunningham, a young Irish woman from near Cornish, as his model. The reverse is a flying eagle over a rising sun. There was no room for a motto, so E PLURIBUS UNUM went on the edge, and 'In God We Trust' was left off entirely.

Saint-Gaudens died at Cornish on August 3, 1907, before a version of his double eagle had gone into circulation. In May, after learning how hard the first coins had been to strike, he had written to Roosevelt: 'Evidently it is no trifling matter to make Greek art conform with modern numismatics.'

Nine blows for one coin

Barber was certain the design would never coin. On November 26, 1906, he wrote that the Mint was 'just as certain that the relief of his eagle will never coin, as we are certain that the Sun will rise each morning,' and he initially rejected the models outright. Only after considerable discussion did he agree to make experimental dies.

Hering described the first trial at the Mint in February 1907: a gold disc was placed in the die and struck under hydraulic pressure of '172 tons, I think it was,' and the impression 'showed little more than half the modeling.' The coin went back under the press again and again, 'until on the ninth strike, when the coin showed up in every detail.' Mint Director Frank Leach later put the figure at about twelve blows, with the coin annealed between strikes; most accounts settle on nine.

The result looked more like a medal than money. The coins are deeply dished, much thicker at the edge than in the fields, with no rim at all, and they could not be stacked. On May 8, 1907, Roosevelt conceded to Saint-Gaudens that 'it has proved hitherto impossible to strike them by one blow, which is necessary under the conditions of making coins of the present day.' A second, lower-relief design still took three blows; on November 18, 1907, the impatient president ordered the Mint to 'begin the new issue, even if it takes you all day to strike one piece,' and more than 12,000 of these High Relief coins were struck. Barber then flattened the design further for mass production, replacing MCMVII with '1907.'

How many Ultra High Relief pieces were made is not known. Contemporary and later accounts give 13, 16, 18, 19 and 22, and some say two were destroyed in testing; the Smithsonian says fewer than two dozen were minted, in February and March 1907, while Roger Burdette's research places later groups between March and July and on December 31, 1907. Estimates of how many survive also vary, from about 13 to 15 with lettered edges plus one plain-edge piece, to about 20.

Reading the edge

Every Ultra High Relief double eagle is a pattern, cataloged in the Judd reference, and the edge tells you which batch a coin came from. According to research by Roger Burdette, the first group, struck February 7 to 14, 1907, used a collar left over from Barber's 1906 pattern, with small sans-serif letters reading E*P*L*U*R*I*B*U*S*U*N*U*M*. Three complete coins received this so-called Gothic edge; two are known today, and the third, thought to be the one loaned to Saint-Gaudens, has never been traced. A fourth coin from that group has a plain edge, because the die cracked before the edge could be lettered.

The later groups were struck with a new reverse die and a collar with serifed letters, E*PLURIBUS*UNUM followed by a run of stars. On the second group the lettering reads upright with the reverse facing up; on the third it reads with the obverse up, the variety collectors call 'inverted edge lettering.'

The Eliasberg-Bass coin is an inverted-edge piece, cataloged as Judd-1909, and is graded PR69 by PCGS, tied for the finest known. Like the others it was struck as a proof on a specially polished planchet, and the specimens are known for satiny surfaces and razor-sharp detail. Because nearly all of them trace directly to Roosevelt, Barber or other officials and were handled with care, most survivors are of gem quality.

The Ultra High Relief should not be confused with the far more common 1907 High Relief, struck by the thousands later that year from the second, lower-relief model, which has a visible rim, or with Barber's low-relief version, dated with Arabic numerals, that went into circulation at the end of December 1907. A separate 1907 experiment struck the design on a smaller, thicker planchet of the same weight; those 'checker' pieces were melted, except two kept in the Mint's collection, when officials realized Congress had to approve any change in diameter.

From Clapp to Eliasberg to Bass

The Eliasberg-Bass specimen spent most of the twentieth century in two of the greatest American collections. It belonged to Washington, D.C., collector John H. Clapp until his death in 1940. In 1942 Louis E. Eliasberg Sr. bought Clapp's entire collection for more than $100,000, at the time one of the largest recorded numismatic transactions, and the purchase helped Eliasberg become the only collector to complete a set of U.S. coins by date, mintmark and major variety.

Eliasberg kept the coin until his death in 1976. In 1982 his family sold his gold collection at auction, and Harry W. Bass Jr. of Dallas, who formed one of the largest collections of U.S. gold ever assembled, bought the Ultra High Relief for $242,000. It stayed out of public view for more than four decades.

In August 2023 the coin led the fourth and final auction of the Harry W. Bass Jr. Core Collection, held during the American Numismatic Association's World's Fair of Money. It sold for $4,320,000 after 73 bids. Proceeds from the Bass sales, which together exceeded $83 million, went to Dallas nonprofits supported by the Harry W. Bass Jr. Foundation, with an emphasis on early childhood education and literacy.

The other famous examples

The coin that shares the PR69 grade has its own record. It was bought in April 1980 as part of a 'Million Dollar Set' of 1907 coinage, passed through several collections, and sold at auction for $2,990,000 in November 2005 and for $2,760,000 in June 2012.

The Saint-Gaudens family's own coin, now PCGS PR68, came from the Mint cabinet and was presented to the sculptor's widow, Augusta, in 1908. It was lent to the American Numismatic Society on December 1, 1910, returned to their son Homer in 1950 and later sold privately. California collector Dan O'Dowd bought it at auction in January 2015 for $2,115,000 and has shown it publicly only a handful of times since.

Of the two Gothic-edge coins, the one graded PCGS Proof-58 sold at auction for $143,000 in 1992, $488,750 in 2005, $690,000 in 2008 and $1,057,500 in 2012, and sold for $840,000 in February 2026. Like its twin, it shows light wear consistent with use as a pocket piece. Two Ultra High Relief coins are in the Smithsonian's National Numismatic Collection, and another that came directly from Barber is in the American Numismatic Society's collection.

The design never stopped pulling at the Mint. In 2009 it struck a modern Ultra High Relief gold coin from Saint-Gaudens's original design, in one ounce of .999 gold with a 50-star obverse, and in November 2025 it announced a 2026 gold coin with the 1907 date in Roman numerals for the 250th anniversary of American independence.

The numbers

Mintage

Not recorded; accounts range from 13 to 22, the Smithsonian says fewer than two dozen

Known survivors

About 13-15 lettered-edge plus one plain-edge (one estimate); about 20 (another)

Weight

Struck to the double eagle standard of 33.431 grams

Diameter

34.1 mm, the double eagle standard

Composition

90% gold, 10% copper

Edge

Lettered E PLURIBUS UNUM (Gothic, upright or inverted), one plain

Designer

Augustus Saint-Gaudens; models by Henry Hering

This coin's grade

PR69 (PCGS), tied for finest known

Timeline

1. 1901

   Theodore Roosevelt and Augustus Saint-Gaudens meet at the Pan-American Exposition and begin corresponding.

2. Dec 27, 1904

   Roosevelt calls U.S. coinage 'atrocious hideousness' and proposes hiring Saint-Gaudens.

3. Nov 1905

   Roosevelt and Saint-Gaudens settle on high relief for the new gold coins, inspired by ancient Greek coins.

4. May 1906

   Saint-Gaudens asks to date the coin in Roman numerals; Roosevelt overrules the Treasury Secretary's objection.

5. Nov 26, 1906

   Chief Engraver Charles Barber writes that the design 'will never coin.'

6. Dec 1906

   Henry Hering delivers coin-sized models; Roosevelt orders dies made 'just as they are.'

7. Feb 7, 1907

   First Ultra High Relief pieces struck, with Gothic edge lettering, through February 14.

8. May 8, 1907

   Roosevelt tells Saint-Gaudens the coins cannot be struck with one blow.

9. Aug 3, 1907

   Saint-Gaudens dies at Cornish, New Hampshire.

10. Nov 18, 1907

    Roosevelt orders the lower High Relief version into production 'even if it takes you all day to strike one piece.'

11. 1908

    The Mint presents an Ultra High Relief coin to Saint-Gaudens's widow, Augusta.

12. 1940

    Collector John H. Clapp dies, still owning the Eliasberg-Bass coin.

13. 1942

    Louis E. Eliasberg Sr. buys the Clapp collection for more than $100,000.

14. 1976

    Eliasberg dies.

15. 1982

    Harry W. Bass Jr. buys the coin at auction for $242,000.

16. 2009

    The Mint issues a modern one-ounce Ultra High Relief gold coin from the original design.

17. Aug 10, 2023

    The Eliasberg-Bass coin sells for $4,320,000 after 73 bids.

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 that brings 1.1 million immigrants.

• Apr 26, 1907

  Roosevelt opens the Jamestown Exposition for the colony's 300th anniversary.

• Sep 7, 1907

  The liner RMS Lusitania sets out on its maiden voyage from Liverpool to New York.

• Oct 22, 1907

  A run on the Knickerbocker Trust Company sets off the Panic of 1907.

• Oct 24, 1907

  J.P. Morgan and other financiers pool $25 million to halt the panic, a crisis that later leads to the Federal Reserve.

• 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 Ultra High Relief Double Eagle is number 8 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 (7 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• Roosevelt told Saint-Gaudens he expected to be impeached by Congress for the coin, and that he would 'regard that as a very cheap payment.'
• When critics complained that the eagle's talons trailed behind it, Roosevelt sent Mint Director Frank Leach to the aviary at Rock Creek Park, where the first eagle he saw flew exactly as the coin shows.
• Treasury Secretary Leslie Shaw opposed the Roman-numeral date, but Roosevelt overruled him.
• Saint-Gaudens left 'In God We Trust' off the coin at Roosevelt's request; public outcry led Congress to order the motto restored.
• Of the three Gothic-edge coins struck, the one believed to have been loaned to Saint-Gaudens himself has never been found.
• In 1907 the Mint also tried the design on a smaller, thicker 'checker' planchet, then melted almost all of them because changing a coin's diameter required Congress's consent.
• The Saint-Gaudens family's own Ultra High Relief spent four decades on loan to the American Numismatic Society before returning to the sculptor's son in 1950.