1927-D Saint-Gaudens Double Eagle

A president, a sculptor and a $20 coin

The double eagle in this story was born of Theodore Roosevelt's impatience with the look of American money. On December 27, 1904, the president wrote to his Treasury secretary that the nation's coinage was 'artistically of atrocious hideousness,' and he soon had the Mint engage Augustus Saint-Gaudens, the country's leading sculptor and a personal friend, to redesign the gold coins.

His $20 piece shows Liberty striding forward with a torch in one hand, for enlightenment, and an olive branch in the other, for peace, with the U.S. Capitol and the rays of the sun behind her. The reverse is a flying eagle seen slightly from below, crossing a rising sun. Saint-Gaudens died on August 3, 1907, before the designs were final, and Mint Engraver Charles E. Barber reworked the original high-relief version into a low-relief one that ordinary presses could strike.

Roosevelt had wanted the motto IN GOD WE TRUST left off. Saint-Gaudens was willing to omit it, but public outcry led Congress to require it, and Barber added it in 1908. The ring of stars around Liberty grew from 46 to 48 by 1912, so a 1927 coin carries the later, fuller design. The coin is 90 percent gold and 10 percent copper, weighs about 33.4 grams and measures about 34 millimeters across, with the edge lettered E PLURIBUS UNUM.

180,000 struck, almost none released

Nothing about the 1927-D looked rare when it was made. The Denver Mint struck 180,000 pieces, a modest figure for a double eagle but hardly a tiny one. As one auction catalog put it in 2025, there were no backdated dies, secret strikings or crooked officials in its story, only a coin that was 'simply' melted.

Most of the coins appear never to have left federal vaults. In the summer of 1932 the Treasury Department was still offering the 1927-D, along with 15 other earlier gold issues, to collectors at face value plus shipping, and most of the coins known today probably came from collectors who took up offers like that. Then came the gold recall of 1933. After Executive Order 6102, gold coins were called in from circulation and bank vaults, and the Treasury melted millions of them in the years that followed. The stored 1927-D double eagles went with them.

Many other scarce Saint-Gaudens dates were later rescued from overseas. From the 1950s through the 1980s, hoards of double eagles came back to the United States from banks in Europe and South America, and dates once thought great rarities turned out to be merely scarce. The 1927-D never turned up in any of them. That helps explain why virtually all survivors grade MS63 or better: they appear to have gone straight from the Denver Mint into collections rather than through decades in bank bags.

Ranking the rarities took time. As late as 1957 a major auction catalog ranked the 1926-D as the rarest date in the series, the 1931-D second and the 1927-D third, though the 1927-D in that sale still brought $1,230 against $500 for the 1926-D. Today the 1927-D is widely called the rarest collectible regular-issue Saint-Gaudens double eagle and the rarest regular-issue U.S. coin, in any metal, struck in the twentieth century. The 1933 double eagle is rarer still, but only one example is legal for a private person to own.

The collectors who saved them

The survivors exist because a few people asked for them at the time. Edward B. Morgan, a Denver collector, seems to have bought a specimen of every Denver Mint coin directly from the Mint each year from 1906 until he died in 1935. He is thought to have been the original owner of the coin later held by F.C.C. Boyd and then by Louis E. Eliasberg Sr.

Connecticut State Librarian George S. Godard obtained two 1927-D double eagles directly from the Denver Mint in the year of issue. One is still in the Museum of Connecticut History. The other was sold off as a duplicate in 1995 for $390,500.

The first public offering of a 1927-D came in December 1944, when the J.F. Bell coin sold for $500. It passed through Dr. Charles Green, Robert Schermerhorn and Josiah K. Lilly, and reached the Smithsonian in 1968. Two more examples in the National Numismatic Collection are believed to have come directly from the Denver Mint in the late 1920s or early 1930s.

The Fox-Duckor coin: from $2,000 to $3.84 million

The coin this page tracks can be traced to James Kelly (1907-1968), a dealer in Dayton, Ohio. In the late 1940s Kelly sold it for $2,000 to a collector in Lima, Ohio, known for decades only as 'Mr. Lima.' Letters preserved by a later owner identified him as James Alfred MacDonell, an oil company executive and philanthropist who gave the proceeds of the coin's eventual sale to the Allen County Museum.

MacDonell kept the coin until a July 1984 auction, where Dr. Steven Duckor, an Orange County collector and numismatist, bought it for $198,000 including the buyer's premium. Duckor consigned it to the Dr. Thaine B. Price sale in May 1998, cataloged by David Akers, where it brought $577,500. Akers called it 'undoubtedly the rarest, most famous, and most desirable collectible regular issue United States gold coin of the Twentieth Century.' A 2001 offering appears to have gone unsold.

After passing through the Douglas Martin Collection, the coin sold for $1,997,500 at auction in January 2014, went to the Rollo Fox Collection, and brought $2,160,000 at auction in January 2020. On January 16, 2025, as part of the Mississippi Collection of Double Eagles, it realized $3,840,000, now certified MS65+ by PCGS with CAC approval. By the 2025 catalog's count it had perhaps six or seven recorded owners between Kelly and that sale, trading on average less than once a decade.

The buying firm's president said: 'We are thrilled to have won this Grail of American numismatics. It's a dream coin for collectors, essential for completing a collection of the Saint-Gaudens series.' The 2025 catalog does not name that year's consignor; it lists the coin's owners after Duckor as the Douglas Martin Collection and then the Rollo Fox Collection.

Counting the survivors

No two published counts agree exactly. The 2025 catalog put the population at '12 or 13 pieces all told' and laid out a roster of 14 entries, saying some of them may be the same coin listed twice. A collector's guide put the number at 14 to 15 and noted that only six or seven were known in 1974. In 2008 David Akers suggested 12 to 20. News coverage of the 2025 sale said about a dozen.

The 2025 roster sorts the coins into three groups. Seven trade, though rarely: the finest is a PCGS MS67 from the Phillip H. Morse collection, which sold for $1,897,500 in November 2005. Three are 'mystery coins,' unseen since 1957, 1973 and 1979 and possibly duplicates of others. Four are in museums and presumably off the market for good: three in the Smithsonian and one in the Museum of Connecticut History.

The highest price paid for any 1927-D is $4,440,000, for the PCGS MS66 example from the Bob R. Simpson Collection, sold at auction in August 2022. That coin had sold for $175,000 privately in 1974 and for $402,500 in 2001.

How to tell one 1927-D from another

Because so few exist, each 1927-D is known by its marks. The die pair most often seen has a small die break running from the bottom serif of the L in LIBERTY across the I to the torch, and a vertical break through the eagle's beak on the reverse. The Fox-Duckor coin shows both, along with a few tiny marks between the rays to the left of Liberty, which serve as its pedigree markers.

Its 2025 description calls it fully struck, with countable columns in the Capitol, sharp detail in the eagle's claw and feathers, frosty luster and orange-gold surfaces with lilac and mint-green at the edges. Akers, writing in 1998, called it 'completely original and fully struck.'

The 1927-D is rare in every grade, but it is not the hardest Saint-Gaudens date to find in top condition. Akers pointed out that the 1920, 1920-S, 1921, 1925-D, 1925-S and 1926-D are all harder to find in MS65 or better, precisely because the few surviving 1927-Ds were saved with care from the start.

The numbers

Mintage

180,000 (Denver)

Known survivors

About 12 to 15 by the most recent counts; 4 in museums

Weight

About 33.4 grams (sources give 33.43 to 33.44 g)

Diameter

About 34 mm (sources give 34.0 and 34.1 mm)

Composition

90% gold, 10% copper; about 0.9675 troy oz of gold

Edge

Lettered E PLURIBUS UNUM

Designer

Augustus Saint-Gaudens; adapted to low relief by Charles E. Barber

Timeline

1. Dec 27, 1904

   President Theodore Roosevelt writes to his Treasury secretary calling American coinage 'artistically of atrocious hideousness,' setting in motion Saint-Gaudens's redesign.

2. Aug 3, 1907

   Saint-Gaudens dies before the double eagle designs are finished; Charles Barber adapts the design to low relief.

3. 1908

   After public outcry, IN GOD WE TRUST is added to the double eagle.

4. 1912

   The ring of stars on the obverse grows to 48.

5. 1927

   The Denver Mint strikes 180,000 double eagles. Connecticut State Librarian George S. Godard obtains two directly from the Mint.

6. 1932

   In the summer, the Treasury Department offers the 1927-D and 15 other gold issues to collectors at face value plus shipping.

7. 1933

   Executive Order 6102 begins the gold recall; the Treasury melts millions of gold coins in the following years, including almost all 1927-D double eagles.

8. Dec 1944

   First public offering of a 1927-D: the J.F. Bell coin sells for $500. It reaches the Smithsonian in 1968.

9. Feb 1957

   A major auction catalog ranks the 1927-D third in rarity among Saint-Gaudens dates, behind the 1926-D and 1931-D.

10. Jul 1984

    Dr. Steven Duckor buys the coin later called the Fox-Duckor 1927-D at auction for $198,000.

11. Jun 1995

    The Museum of Connecticut History sells its duplicate 1927-D for $390,500.

12. May 1998

    The Duckor coin sells for $577,500 in the Dr. Thaine B. Price sale, cataloged by David Akers.

13. Nov 2005

    The finest known 1927-D, graded PCGS MS67, sells for $1,897,500.

14. Jan 9, 2014

    The Duckor coin realizes $1,997,500 at auction.

15. Jan 9, 2020

    The coin, now in the Rollo Fox Collection, realizes $2,160,000.

16. Aug 2022

    The Bob R. Simpson PCGS MS66 example sets the record for the date at $4,440,000.

17. Jan 16, 2025

    The Fox-Duckor coin, PCGS MS65+ CAC, realizes $3,840,000 at auction as part of the Mississippi Collection of Double Eagles.

The world in 1927

• Jan 7, 1927

  The first transatlantic telephone call connects New York City and London.

• May 20, 1927

  Charles Lindbergh takes off on the first solo nonstop transatlantic flight, landing in Paris the next day.

• May 26, 1927

  The last Ford Model T rolls off the assembly line.

• Aug 23, 1927

  Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti are executed in Massachusetts.

• Oct 6, 1927

  The Jazz Singer opens, marking the move from silent films to sound.

• Nov 13, 1927

  The Holland Tunnel opens, the first vehicular tunnel under the Hudson River.

• Dec 2, 1927

  Ford unveils the Model A.

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, 1927-D Saint-Gaudens Double Eagle is number 10 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 (9 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• In the summer of 1932, anyone could order a 1927-D double eagle from the Treasury for face value plus shipping.
• Not one 1927-D is known to have turned up in the hoards of double eagles that came back from European and South American banks between the 1950s and 1980s.
• A Connecticut state librarian ordered two 1927-D double eagles from the Denver Mint the year they were struck. The state still owns one.
• The Fox-Duckor coin was sold in the late 1940s for $2,000, and in 2025 for $3,840,000.
• The man known for decades only as 'Mr. Lima' gave the proceeds from selling his 1927-D to the Allen County Museum in Ohio.
• When this coin sold in 1998, it was offered in the Dr. Thaine B. Price sale, though Price never owned a 1927-D. Dr. Duckor had consigned it to that auction.
• Though made in 1927, the coin is rarer than nearly every other twentieth-century U.S. coin: only the 1933 double eagle, which is effectively uncollectible, is harder to own.