Saint-Gaudens Low-Relief Double Eagles 1907-33

Uniting States change has never been more scenic than it was in the early days of the 20th century. The Buffalo nickel . . . The Mercury dime . . . The Standing Liberty sector . . . The Walking Liberty half buck-these were among the aesthetically stunning coins that made their first appearance and circulated feature by face during that stop.

Fittingly, however, the centerpiece of this "blond age" wasn't a nickel or silver coin, but one made out of gold. The Saint-Gaudens lookalike eagle, or $20 gold example, stands above the place as the song most magnificent coin of this-or any-era in U.S. chronicle.

As the 1900s dawned, Augustus Saint-Gaudens was a towering build in the sphere of American flimsy arts. Widely acclaimed as the affirm's preeminent sculptor, he was also a man of fluency and influence who dominated the art world of his day not only by example but also through the problem of vigor and persuasion.

His brilliance and notoriety brought him to the interest of President Theodore Roosevelt, and the two men developed a convivial relationship that was at once both delicate and professional. In 1905, Saint- Gaudens planned a princely opening medal for the leader. Pleasing and impressed, Roosevelt then invited him to approach prospective new designs for the two chief U.S. gold coins, the bend eagle and eagle, and for a one-cent member (which never reached production). Saint-Gaudens welcomed the challenge and plunged into the task with all his prodigious energy and dexterity.

Both men admired the high-relief money of earliest Greece, and both decided that U.S. gold coins ornate after that sculpt would be a spectacular achievement. They would also pause in bare differ to the two undistinguished-looking coins that were being replaced, the Liberty lookalike eagle and the Coronet eagle, both of which had their roots in the first half of the 19th century.

Although his shape was deteriorating as the work went along, Saint-Gaudens created superb designs for both gold coins. The clone eagle, especially, is a masterpiece. Its frontage skin a chubby-chunk study of Liberty with a torch in her right hand and an emerald split in her left. She is exposed in achieve tramp with waves of sunlight behind her and the U.S. Capitol Building to the left of her flowing gown. Encircling her are 46 stars-one for each confusion in the Union at that time. The coin's overturn depicts a breathtaking eagle in departure, with the sun below extending its energy upward. Above the eagle, in two semicircular tiers, are the inscriptions UNITED STATES OF AMERICA and TWENTY DOLLARS. High points to bill for clothing are Liberty's breast and knee and the eagle's wing.

Saint-Gaudens located another necessary motto, E PLURIBUS UNUM, along the tiptoe of the coin, hence sinking the cover on the facade and swap and reinforcing their orderly, open look. He and Roosevelt conspired to forget IN GOD WE TRUST from the first of the new expand eagles, but God-fearing members of Congress noticed this and mandated addition of this motto on later issues, starting near the end of 1908. On pieces shaped thereafter, it appears above the sun on the switch.

Roosevelt and Saint-Gaudens intended that the coin would be struck in high relief to beget out each stabbing specify. Unfortunately, however, the singer died in 1907, almost on the eve of the coin's debut. Meanwhile, Roosevelt was preoccupied with more burning matters of state. All this, mutual with the requirements of stack-shaped coinage, gave Mint Chief Engraver Charles E. Barber an option and a tolerate to drop the coin's relief. High-race minting mandatory this, he said-and what's more, high-relief coins wouldn't stack.

Fortunately, the beauty of the coin relics dazzling, even in poorer relief. And thankfully, Saint-Gaudens' unusual art was preserved in its pristine beauty through the minting of small records of really high-relief patterns and high-relief corporate strikes in 1907-or pretty MCMVII, for the year was shown on these coins in Roman numerals.

The first production pieces were made with high relief. Nevertheless after unusual just 11,250, Mint officials substituted new dies with the bespoke, lower relief, and these remained in use through the end of the cycle. As if to underscore the modify from the classical to the commercial, the Mint worn Arabic numbers in dating all summary-relief dual eagles.

"Saints" were minted each year from 1907 through 1916. A three-year interval followed, after which the coins were struck yearly from 1920 through 1933. The part mints in Denver and San Francisco augmented the focal Philadelphia Mint production, but not in every year. Mint letters exist above the meeting the designer's initials (ASG) below.

From 1929 onward, newly minted examples were seized almost entirely as part of the homeland's gold coffers, with the being free into circulation. Almost all these were melted (along with the prior fold eagles) following the gold withdraw order signed in 1933 by another President Roosevelt-Theodore's cousin, Franklin. As a significance, twin eagles square 1929 through 1932 are exceedingly juicy nowadays. The Mint created nearly half a million pieces dated 1933, but the government maintains that these were never free, and, hence it is banned to own them. That was the end of accepted-emanate U. S. Gold coinage.

Mintages were normally modest, but minder melting, not low mintage, was primarily responsible for concept of the chief rarities, with the 1927-D, the 1920-S, the 1921, the 1930-S and the 1932. The survival of many of these dates is predominately due to the large capacity for gold coins held in Swiss and French invest vaults. Since the 50s, tens of thousands of "Saints" have found their way back to their country of beginning and into collectors' hands. Proofs are very rare as only 687 were untaken for sale from 1908 through 1915. They were made with an utterly dull surface excepting for 1909 and 1910 when they were made with a more brilliant Roman or satin determine. This large gold coined is actively hunted by a host of collectors: from gold hoarders to letters collectors to those challenged by the awesome (and costly) undertaking of assembling a complete date and mintmark set.

In 1986, the U.S. Treasury rewarded the "Saint" the utmost complement by placing its obverse sketch on the American Eagle gold bullion coins, where it has remained ever since.

SPECIFICATIONS:

Diameter: 34 millimeters Weight: 33.436 grams Composition: .900 gold.100 copper Edge: Lettered E PLURIBUS UNUM Net Weight: .96750 scrap downright gold

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Akers, David W. A Handbook of 20th-Century United States Gold Coins 1907-1933, Bowers & Merena Galleries, Wolfeboro, NH, 1988. Bowers, Q. David, United States Gold Coins, An Illustrated History, Bowers & Ruddy, Los Angeles, 1982. Breen, Walter, Walter Breen's Complete Encyclopedia of U.S. and Colonial Coins, F.C.I. Press/Doubleday, New York, 1988. Dryfhout, John H. The Works of Augustus Saint-Gaudens, University Press of New England, Hanover, NH, 1982. Taxay, Don, The U.S. Mint and Coinage, Arco Publishing Co. Inc., New York, 1966. Vermeule, Cornelius, Numismatic Art in America, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1971.

Coin Information Provided Courtesy NGC.

Roosevelt Dimes 1946 - present

Who really intended the Roosevelt Dime? Was it the U. S. Mint's Chief Engraver, John Ray Sinnock, whose initials figure on the coins first minted in 1946, or was it sculptor Selma Burke, whose bas-relief submitted as a gift to the President five days previous bears eerie resemblance to the portrayal actually worn? This irksome inquiry has been raised repeatedly during novel time, and it ashes a subject of ponder among numismatic scholars.

What is known for certain is that the American open in 1945 was clamoring for some cenotaph to their fallen chief, whose surface had come just as he was about to enjoy a musical victory after existence of struggle and disquiet. As World War II was looming its end in April of that year, Franklin Delano Roosevelt breathed his last, and the gratis world mourned. The people's only four-tenure president died at 63, aged afar his days by twin burdens of the maximum lucrative depression in the people's narration and the most devastating war of all time.

Within the Treasury Department, procedure were fast laid for the introduction of a new coin to prize Roosevelt. Since the deferred president had been afflicted with polio, or infantile paralysis as it was then generally known, it seemed only relaxed to place his depiction on the dime. This humbled coin was symbolic of the struggle to end polio through the "March of Dimes" fundraising operation, an envisage begun during Roosevelt's first term.

In a trip with its 40-year tradition of enlisting remote artists in the plan of new coins, the Mint assigned this brief to Chief Engraver Sinnock. His initial models were submitted to the national Commission of Fine Arts by Acting Mint Director Leland Howard on October 12, 1945. The Commission unwanted them on very exclusive argument and recommended an invitational competition for the outline of the new dime, naming five accomplished sculptors as candidates. Given the allowable time casing (the coins had to be keen for arise when the 1946 March of Dimes campaign kicked off on the belatedly president's birthday, January 30), this suggestion was abruptly rejected by Mint Director Nellie Tayloe Ross.

Instead, Sinnock went back to his workshop to make the beloved improvements. His small rule of Roosevelt with the now forward replaced large mottos, larger study with a miniscule IN GOD WE TRUST. As it fit the vacant opening, LIBERTY remained in large lettering but was moved to the left from its former opinion promptly above the portrayal. The year, and Sinnock's initials JS, were utterly small and appeared below the truncation of Roosevelt's stem. The repeal featured an upright torch, symbolizing openness, flanked by twigs of jade and oak, respectively denoting quiet and victory. The motto E PLURIBUS UNUM was ineptly spaced between these elements in a release line. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA and ONE DIME were accepted in arcs around the fringe, separated from each other by ornamental dots. At the eleventh hour, these revised models were approved on January 8, 1946 by the Commission of Fine Arts and Treasury Secretary Fred Vinson. Accompanying this announcement was an order from Director Ross to begin the production of hubs and dies immediately and to begin penny as presently as workable.

As they would decades later with the claims raised by Selma Burke, John Sinnock's initials JS on the dime provided controversy from the outset. Americans, newly awakened to the situation-war hazard posed by the Soviet Union, were opening to invent Communists behind every tree. A persistent tale expanded that the initials JS were those of Soviet organizer Joseph Stalin. As absurd as this may seem today, enough The possibility alarmed americans of Communist change that the Mint was affected to originate an invoice identifying the coin's architect and refuting the claims of "Reds" being harbored within its respected bulwark.

Coined by the millions every year from 1946 forward, the Roosevelt Dime chain has no unusual dates, and the only challenge in completing collection mendacity in locating scarce varieties or form rarities. Several teenager hub changes have occurred, the first appearing in 1946 when it was realized that parts of the obverse design were indistinct, plus the controversial initials JS. Other modifications are noted during 1964 and 1981. Since then, new hubs have been introduced frequently. This is to compensate for the costume which fallout from the frequent die sinkings vital to meet modern strain for additional change. These new hubs develop almost annually, but the changes are so feeble as to go unnoticed excepting by specialists.

Roosevelt dimes have been coined at three mints: Philadelphia, Denver and San Francisco. From 1946 through 1964, the mintmark place was just to the left of the source of the torch. From 1968 onward, mintmarks appear above the year. Those struck in Philadelphia carried no mintmark pending a letter P was introduced creation in 1980. Roosevelt dimes coined at the mints in Denver and San Francisco have forever been identified by words D and S, respectively, except during the time 1965-67 when these mintmarks were gone. All three mints made dimes for circulation through 1955; in March of that year, San Francisco ceased the minting of coins, and for the next ten years its mint was worn exclusively as an attempt staff. The other two mints nonstop lonely pending 1965, when the West Coast facility was reactivated in a power to overcome a nationwide coin famine. Silver dimes square 1964 and carrying no mintmark were struck in San Francisco during the last months of 1965.

Although there are no singular dates in the Roosevelt dime chain and it is certainly fulfilled in mint confusion, some issues contain notable premiums, particularly in grades MS-65 and higher. These embrace all the 1948 and 1949 dimes, 1950-S and 1951-S. Despite their, much inferior to average mintages, the three issues square 1955 were commonly hoarded and pass only modest premiums. The only customary-gush coin appeal more than its silver gold help in circulated grades is 1949-S. Points to trial for costume on the Roosevelt dime include the highpoints of FDR's fleece and cheek and the flame and horizontal bands of the torch.

Proofs were coined at the Philadelphia Mint launch in 1950, and this date through 1955 are all worth more than subsequent proofs. Coinage of proofs was hovering with the adoption of copper-nickel clothed dimes in 1965. No proofs were coined with the dates 1965, 1966 and 1967, but "exclusive mint sets" were coined at the San Francisco Mint that have a prooflike class to their surfaces. These are not as gallantly struck as sincere proofs. In addition, less concern was full in their behavior, and they frequently display nicks and abrasion, even when found in their inventive packaging. Proof currency resumed in 1968, this time at the San Francisco Mint. The S-Mint dimes square 1968 to date are factual proofs course the letter S and were made exclusively for retailing to collectors. Since 1992, these have been coined in both the conventional clothed composition and at the old silver everyday. The Philadelphia and Denver Mint persist to yield copper-nickel clad dimes for common circulation.

SPECIFICATIONS:

Diameter: 17.9 millimeters Weight: 2.50 grams (silver) Composition: .900 silver.100 copper Net Weight: .07234 scrap wholesome silver Weight: 2.27 grams (CuNi-clad) Composition: .750 copper.250 nickel bonded to unmixed copper Edge: Reeded

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Breen, Walter, Walter Breen's Complete Encyclopedia of U.S. and Colonial Coins, F.C.I. Press/Doubleday, New York, 1988. Tomaska, Rick Jerry, Cameo and Brilliant Proof Coinage of the 1950 to 1970 Era, R & I Publications, Encinitas, CA, 1991. Taxay, Don, The U.S. Mint and Coinage, Arco Publishing Co., New York, 1966. Yeoman, R.S., A Guide Book of United States Coins, 48th Edition. Western Publishing Co., Racine, WI, 1994.

Coin Information Provided Courtesy NGC.