1915-S $20 Saint-Gaudens Double Eagle PCGS MS63,

Ron Guth tells us that the 1915-S is the second most common of the pre-1920 dates of the Saint; the most common of that era is the 1914-S. Gold specialist David Akers writes, "The 1915-S is almost always very sharply struck....Lustre is typically very good as is the color which is most often a rich orange and greenish gold."

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.