1907 $20 Saint Gaudens Double Eagle PCGS MS63

Here’s an attractive example of Saint-Gaudens’ masterwork, his Liberty-striding double eagle that is commonly called the ‘Saint.’ This coin, this design, is considered among the most beautiful in all numismatics, not just in America but around the world. PCGS has graded 5,196 as MS63 with 9,272 finer. Take advantage of this opportunity to acquire a mint state example of this stunner at a more affordable price.

Hettie Anderson, the model who posed for Saint-Gaudens Victory in both the William Tecumseh Sherman sculpture and the double eagle coin.

The model who posed for Saint-Gaudens’ most famous work was Hettie Anderson, a light-skinned mixed-race woman who came to Manhattan during the 1890s. Many artists and sculptors sought Hettie to model for them, because of, as one newspaper account tells us, her “creamy skin, crisp curling hair, and warm brown eyes.”

Hettie's image represents the winged Greek goddess Victory in Saint-Gaudens's equestrian sculpture honoring Civil War general William Tecumseh Sherman, as well as the same upon the Double Eagle (1907-1933). In 1899, the New York Journal and Advertiser wrote, "There is nothing in Greek sculpture finer than her figure. [It is] imposing [and] her carriage queenly..."

She fled bitter prejudice in the post-Reconstruction South to model for the likes of Daniel Chester French, Adolf Weinman, and Saint-Gaudens. Upon arriving in New York, Hettie worked as a clerk and seamstress while studying at the Art Students League. Research tells us that before the Civil War, Anderson's family was designated 'free colored persons'; they owned land and earned wages. In New York, she and her mother were listed in the census as white.

"I need her badly," wrote Saint-Gaudens to a friend. He wrote in a draft of his memoir that he counted on her stamina for "posing patiently, steadily and thoroughly in the Spirit one wished..."