1926 $20 Saint Gaudens Double Eagle PCGS MS65

Excellent candidate for a 20th century gold type coin. Inspired by President Theodore Roosevelt, Augustus Saint-Gaudens crafted the design for the double eagle that debuted in 1907. PCGS has graded 5,025 of this issue in MS65, with 1,166 finer. Jeff Garrett writes, "Like most other Philadelphia issues from this period, a significant number were saved in European banks and have since made their way back home. This date is one of the most common issues in the series. The 1926 Double Eagle can be found in all grades of Mint State through MS 66."

Hettie Anderson, the model whose figure is presented as Liberty on Saint-Gaudens stunning double eagle.

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 arrive 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, Adolf 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..."