1914-D $10 Indian Head Eagle, NGC MS64+

Jeff Garrett writes, "Like its Philadelphia cousin, this date is generally well struck and lustrous. While most were melted, enough examples survived to go around for collectors today, including several in gem Mint State grades....It is likely that a significant number of the survivors traveled from Denver to eastern banks. From the banks of the east coast, these coins were soon sent over to Europe to wait out World War I, subsequent depression, and the next world war before returning to these shores."

Supported by President Theodore Roosevelt's deeply personal foray in U.S. coinage, in 1905 Saint-Gaudens was given the creative challenge of developing three new circulating coins. Among them was the $10 Eagle coin. Roosevelt was smitten with the artistic elements of the coin of ancient Greece. After returning to his studio in Cornish, NH, Saint-Gaudens set to work preparing sketches of the design of the new Eagle coin. The artist focused on crafting the image of a standing eagle, one of which found its way onto the 1905 presidential inaugural medal. An adaptation of that design became the reverse device of the $10 Indian head Eagle.  Saint-Gaudens took inspiration from the classical figure of Nike (Victory) when he drafted initial designs for a cent piece that was not developed further. This profile of Nike, bedecked with an olive wreath, became the obverse motif for this Eagle coin. Roosevelt saw Saint-Gaudens' design for the eagle, and was not happy with it. He made his feelings known--and offered an artistic suggestion--in a letter to him dated November 14, 1905. Wrote Roosevelt, "...is it possible to make a Liberty with that Indian feather head-dress? ... Would the feather headdress be any more out of keeping with the rest of Liberty than the canonical Phyrgian cap which is never worn by any free people in the world?"