1908 $20 Saint Gaudens Double Eagle, No Motto PCGS MS64

The Saint-Gaudens Double Eagle (1907-1933)

The Striding Liberty double eagle created by Augustus Saint-Gaudens is considered to be the most beautiful American coin ever produced. Scholars have compared it to the most dramatic and stunning classical art of ancient Greece. For example, Cornelius Vermeule writes, "The double eagle is perhaps the most majestic coin ever to bear our national imprint. The Liberty striding forward is as grand in miniature as the Hellenistic Victory of Samothrace on a heroic scale. The eagle in flight against the sun on the reverse achieves complete domination of motion and expanding vista over the confines of a tiny tondo.”

But how did this masterpiece of Saint-Gaudens come to be? The story comes to us from Saint-Gaudens’s son, Homer.

The scheme for the United States coins—the cent, the eagle, and the double eagle—… originated … at a dinner with President Roosevelt in the winter of 1905. There they both grew enthusiastic over the old high-relief Greek coins, until the President declared that he would have the mint stamp a modern version of such coins in spite of itself if my father would design them, adding with his customary vehemence, “You know, Saint-Gaudens, this is my pet crime.”

President Theodore Roosevelt (left) and Augustus Saint-Gaudens. The beautiful double eagle was the result of an animated conversation between the two men over dinner at the White House in 1905. Both photos: nps.gov.

The double eagle coin that was the brainchild of Theodore Roosevelt and Augustus Saint-Gaudens would come to be considered the masterpiece one of our most renowned sculptors and medalists. Sadly, the artist would never see his double eagle, for he died of stomach cancer before it was produced by the U.S. Mint. In fact, he was struggling with the disease as he worked on sketches and models for what is now called the “Saint” in his honor.

In a letter to Roosevelt dated November 11, 1905, Saint-Gaudens explains his artistic vision for the double eagle coin:

Up to the present I have done no work on the actual models for the coins, but have made sketches, and the matter is constantly in my mind. I have about determined on the composition of one side, which would  contain an eagle …. On the other side would be some kind of a (possibly winged) figure of liberty striding energetically forward as if on a mountain top … My idea is to make it a living thing and typical of progress.

The image of Liberty for the $20 was adapted from Saint-Gaudens’ 1903 William Tecumseh Sherman monument in the Grand Army Plaza at the corner of 59th Street and Fifth Avenue that borders Central Park South in New York City.

The artist was so ill that his assistant Henry Hering finished the models and took full responsibility for the coins through completion, aided by the ever-vigorous President Roosevelt. Saint-Gaudens succumbed to his illness on August 3, 1907, months before the double eagle coins were minted.

After his death, Roosevelt honored Saint-Gaudens as an artist and friend by saying in a 1908 memorial speech that his double eagle and eagle were “more beautiful than any coins since the days of the Greeks, and they achieve their striking beauty because Saint-Gaudens not only possessed a perfect mastery in the physical address of his craft, but also a daring and original imagination.”