1911-D $20 Saint Gaudens Double Eagle PCGS MS64+ (CAC)

Here’s a dramatic specimen of Saint-Gaudens’ magnum opus, the $20 double eagle that is called the ‘Saint’ in his honor. Jeff Garrett writes, "The 1911–D is among the most plentiful Double Eagle of this time period  .... Most of the 1911–D Double Eagles seen are well struck with sometimes deep green–gold colorations." PCGS has graded 182 in MS64+ with 3,399 finer. In CAC, there are 344 in MS64/64+ with 570 finer. CAC gives this issue a price of $3,690.00 in MS64 (there is no CAC price for MS64+).

Hettie Anderson depicted behind Saint-Gaudens in an etching by Anders Zorn, 1897. Anderson was the model who posed for Victory in both the William Tecumseh Sherman sculpture and the double eagle coin. Image: Wikimedia Commons.

It was only in 1991 that the numismatic community discovered the identity of the model for the Saint-Gaudens double eagle. Her name was Hettie Anderson, a light-skinned mixed-race woman who arrived in Manhattan in the 1890. Quite a few artists and sculptors sought to depict what one newspaper account described as 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, Adolph 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..."