1907 High Relief Flat Rim - 1907 High Relief $20 NGC AU58. Smoldering mint luster and clean surfaces characterize this 1907 High Relief Saint-Gaudens double eagle. Just a touch of wear on the highest points keeps this coin from a Mint State grade. The surfaces are original and extremely clean for the grade. The strike is above average with full details in the center of Libertys drapery and the eagles upper feathers. There is slight flatness on Libertys left knee and the lower suns rays of the reverse.

The coinage began in 1907 with the Ultra High Relief pattern coins. These are so rare that they are virtually unavailable today with 15 certified by both major grading services, and this number does not account for resubmissions and crossovers. The High Relief Saint-Gaudens double eagle coins followed in the same year. With a mintage of 12,367, they are available to collectors and investors today. Some of the Saint-Gaudens double eagle coins have a wire rim and others a flat rim. The former is caused by extra metal being squeezed out between the dies and collar causing a rim or flange around most of one or both sides. The present coin is the flat rim variety. The coins also have a lettered edge. E PLURIBUS UNUM is on the edge with stars dividing the words.

Saint-Gaudens took the setting for the obverse from his sculpture, Victory. The coin depicts Liberty striding toward the viewer as if she is ready to step out of the coin. She is holding an olive branch in her left hand and a torch in her right, lighting the way to freedom as dawn rises over the Capitol. She is wearing a loose, flowing gown that exposes her arms and her left knee and leg, and her long hair flows to the side. The Capitol building is shown at the lower left. Behind her are rays of the sunburst. The date in Roman numerals is on the right, below the olive branch. LIBERTY is in an arc at the top border. Forty-six stars surround the edge of the coin, one for each state in the Union at the time. On the reverse, Saint-Gaudens placed a large, majestic eagle viewed from slightly below, soaring to the left above the rising sun. It is reminiscent of Gobrechts flying eagle. Above the eagle in two arcs are the inscriptions UNITED STATES OF AMERICA and the denomination. All of the words in the legends on the reverse are separated by dots. Beneath the eagle is the rising sun with stylized rays, some of which touch the opposite rim. Saint-Gaudens had placed the motto E PLURIBUS UNUM on the coins edge thus reducing the clutter on the obverse and reverse and reinforcing their clean, open look. 

Saint-Gaudens deliberately left off the motto IN GOD WE TRUST at the request of President Roosevelt, a religious man who felt that it was blasphemous to have Gods name inscribed on a coin. He did not wish the name of Lord on coins to be passed around brothels, saloons, gambling halls or used for other immoral purposes. \

Augustus Saint-Gaudens was born in Ireland, the son of a shoemaker. He became one of Americas most successful sculptors of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In 1848, his family moved from Dublin to New York before his first birthday. When he was thirteen, Saint-Gaudens left school and became an apprentice to a cameo cutter. He also took classes at Cooper Union and the National Academy of Design. When he was nineteen, he moved to Europe where he studied classical art and architecture.           

His first commission was a statue of Admiral Farragut that is still in Madison Square Park in New York. By the 1890s Saint-Gaudens had produced his statues of Diana and Abraham Lincoln, both considered some of his greatest works. He also created works such as the Robert Gould Shaw Memorial on Boston Common and the equestrian monument to Civil War general John A. Logan in Chicago. He became part of a group of new artists and architects and worked for an architectural firm for whom he produced a group of monuments and decorative sculpture. Throughout his career, he worked with architects creating works that were designed specifically for the sites they were building. At the entrance to New Yorks Central Park is his bronze statue of General Sherman led by Victory, the inspiration for the current coin. It took him eleven years to complete this project.

Saint-Gaudens moved to his summer home in Cornish, New Hampshire in 1900. Joined there by a community of artists, Saint-Gaudens spent his final years. He died of stomach cancer in 1907 just after he created the beautiful high relief models for the eagle and double eagle coins at the request of President Theodore Roosevelt, for whom he had earlier designed the second inaugural medal.