1908-D $20 Saint Gaudens Double Eagle, with Motto PCGS MS63

Here's the perfect type coin to add to your numismatic holdings. Plus it is the first year that this issue carried the motto IN GOD WE TRUST. President Theodore Roosevelt felt that it was immoral to put the name of God upon our nation's coinage. However, Congress did not agree and the latter part of 1908 saw the motto placed on both $10 eagles and $20 double eagles. PCGS has awarded the grade of MS63 to 930 examples, with 1,636 finer.

Roosevelt told Saint-Gaudens, "You know, Saint-Gaudens, this is my pet crime."

Wrote President Theodore Roosevelt to Secretary of the U.S. Treasury Leslie Mortier Shaw on December 27, 1904, “I think 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 a coinage that would have some beauty?” Two weeks later, on the evening of January 12,1905, acclaimed sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens was in the White House enjoying a glass of wine before dining with Roosevelt and Shaw.

The two men—the president and the artist—had an enthusiastic, animated conversation about the beauty of high-relief Greek coins. Dinner saw the three men discussing a scheme for redesigning the cent, the eagle (gold $10) and the double eagle (gold $20), all behind the back of U.S. Mint Chief Engraver Charles E. Barber. “I would have the Mint stamp modern versions of those Greek coins in spite of itself,” said Roosevelt, if the honored sculptor would design them. “You know, Saint-Gaudens, this is my pet crime.” Saint-Gaudens' double eagle saw its debut in 1907.