1889-S $20 (1889-S  Double Eagle) PCGS MS64. Type 3 Double Eagle. This outstanding, branch mint, 1889-S Type 3 Double Eagle is a premium quality coin. Mint luster blooms from within its sharply struck devices. A few wispy marks keep it from a gem grade. The strike is full on both sides of this creamy, late nineteenth century double eagle. The mark on Libertys cheek is on the holder not the coin. The Type 3 was created when the denomination was changed from TWENTY D. to TWENTY DOLLARS in 1877. The motto IN GOD WE TRUST had been added in 1866.

James Barton Longacre designed the double eagle. It shows a Liberty head in profile facing left wearing coronet inscribed LIBERTY. Her hair is tightly tied in the back with two loose curls hanging down her neck to the end of the truncation. She is surrounded by thirteen six pointed stars with the date below. Dentils are near the edge on both sides of the coin. The reverse shows a heraldic eagle with elaborate ribbons on both sides of the shield extending from the top corner down to the eagles tail feathers. The ribbons are inscribed, on the left E PLURIBUS and UNUM on the right. The ribbons were added to the design to symbolize the denomination since this was the first twenty dollar coin. There is an oval of thirteen stars above the eagles head and an arc of rays from wing tip to wing tip behind the upper half of the oval. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA is in an arc above the eagle, and the denomination TWENTY D. is below. The mint mark is between the tail feathers and the denomination.

Originally all of the United States coinage was secular. However, in the first sixty or so years of the United States existence, religious life became more important to the populace. By 1860, twenty-three percent of the population belonged to a church or had some kind of religious affiliation. Groups such as the National Reform Association wanted to amend the Constitution to acknowledge the Lord Jesus Christ as the source of all power and authority in government. The amendment was unsuccessful; however, the sentiment to bring religion into government remained strong. President Abraham Lincoln chose James Pollock to be the Mint Director in 1861. He served until 1867. Pollock was in favor of the idea that the nation depended on the will of God. The Reverend Mark Richards Watkinson of Pennsylvania was the first person who actually addressed this need. He believed that adding the name of God to our coinage would, relieve us from the ignominy of heathenism[and] place us openly under the divine protection. The Coinage Act of 1865 created the authority to place the motto on all coins. In 1866 it was placed on the half eagle, the eagle and the double eagle as well as on silver coinage and the shield nickel. It wasnt until the newly designed double eagles of Augusts Saint-Gaudens that the motto was briefly omitted in 1907 because of President Theodore Roosevelts objection to it.

The design change that brought about the Type 3 double eagle was the denomination. Like the addition of the motto to the reverse of the previous double eagle, it did not cause any major change in the rest of the coins design. William Barber who by then was the Engraver following Longacres death in 1869 made the modification.

The 1889-S double eagle had an original mintage of 774,700. In its population report, PCGS shows 10 in MS64 with 0 better.