This coin has sold.

1907 marked the inaugural year of St. Gaudens production.  The year began with the production of the old Liberty designed coinage, shifted half way through the year to the ‘High Relief’ St. Gaudens design, before ultimately finishing the year with the more manageable and efficient lower relief design that ultimately endured for $20 St. Gaudens production from there forward.  Owing to these changes, 1907 dated coins were only minted in Philadelphia, and saw a total mintage of 361,650 coins.  These coins survived fairly well, and only get extremely expensive at very high grades.  In middle grades, they are accessible and reasonable.

Per PCGS population figures, 3109 1907 coins total have achieved the grade MS62, and 14,691 are known to have survived in better condition.  The overall scarcity rating among all St. Gaudens for the 1907 is 44/54.  Like all coins from this cache, this example has a very strong overall appearance and is quite pleasing for it’s grade.  This coin is a terrific opportunity for a gold investor to secure a significant coin in American monetary history at an historically favorable premium, and a comparatively low premium to historic norms for even common dated coinage.

The PCGS suggested retail price for this coin is $3200.  Offered here for $2795.

PCGS Population: 3,109

PCGS Holder: Generation 6.1 (2020-Present)

History: The 1908 St. Gaudens tells about as interesting a story as you’ll find when it comes to the history of money in America. Toward the end of his first term, President Theodore Roosevelt made it a personal quest to beautify American coinage.  He wrote to the Secretary of the Treasury at the time: “I think the state of 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 us a coinage which would have some beauty?”

In 1905, Roosevelt got his wish, as Augustus St. Gaudens privately agreed to become the first ever non-mint employee to design U.S. coinage.  He was tasked with redesigning those coins that didn’t require congressional approval to be changed – the four gold coins ($2.5, $5, $10, & $20) and the cent.  Roosevelt was quite particular about the way the coins would look, especially the $20 gold piece, insisting on a ‘high relief’ design, noting the most beautiful coins of Ancient Greece were struck that way.  He also insisted on the removal of the phrase, “In God We Trust”, feeling the motto’s presence on the coins was a debasement of God’s name, as the coins could be spent to further criminal activities.  St. Gaudens was happy to oblige as he felt the motto distracted from the overall design.

In the end, the project experienced many delays.  The biggest hang up surrounded the number of strikes it would take to bring about the desired high relief of the coins during the minting process, and the burden on the mint to replicate the process en masse.  But in late 1907, an impatient and adamant Roosevelt demanded the coins be struck according to St. Gaudens set of dies, ‘even if it takes you all day to strike one piece!’  The mint eventually stuck just over 12,000 ‘High Relief’ $20 gold pieces that were released into circulation in 1907 and 1908.  Roosevelt was so pleased with the design, he wrote to St. Gaudens shortly before his death in 1907, “I have instructed the Director of the Mint that these dies are to be reproduced just as quickly as possible and just as they are. It is simply splendid. I suppose I shall be impeached for it by Congress, but I shall regard that as a very cheap payment!”

Despite Roosevelt’s clear preference, the “High Relief’ debate was far from won.  The mint’s chief engraver, Charles Barber, maintained that no mint would be capable of producing coins of such relief in a single strike – a necessity to produce the coins in large quantities – and insisted on creating a more manageable ‘low relief’ design.  In December 1907, with the blessing of the SuperIntendent of the Philadelphia mint, Barber ordered mass production of the coins on his replicated dies, and for the pure sake of mint efficiency, the last of the “High Relief” varieties were struck.

The uneven start for the St. Gaudens gold coins worsened mid-way through 1908.  There was a public outcry over the absence of the Motto “In Gold We Trust” on the coinage, and an outraged and furious Congress ordered the Motto returned.  Barber obliged and the latter half of the coins minted in 1908, and all coins from then forward, carried the Motto, making these 1908 “Motto” St. Gaudens an historically significant and memorable addition to any gold portfolio