1907 $20 Saint Gaudens (1907 Saint Gaudens), PCGS MS64. This pleasant, choice, mint state 1907 Saint Gaudens Double Eagle shows abundant mint luster, more so on the reverse than the obverse. A few contact marks hidden in the drapery and some wispy marks in the fields keep this coin from a gem grade. The strike is average on both sides with slight central weakness on the obverse and the suns rays of the reverse.

Charles Barber, the Mint Engraver, modified Augustus Saint-Gaudens high relief coins so they could be produced on a high-speed minting press. Barber completed work on his version of the design, with a greatly lowered relief, and the new coin went into production on a large-scale basis. A total of 361,667 of the revised design were produced by the Mint in 1907; the "Low Relief" coins were released into circulation at the end of December 1907. Barber's modifications were denounced by both the sculptor's family and by Hering, Saint-Gaudens former student and assistant. Among other alterations, Barber changed the Roman numeral MCMVII for the date to the Arabic numeral 1907, as if to underscore the shift from classical to commercial.

All future double eagles would use Arabic numerals for the date. The modifications made the coin more suitable for the mass production of millions of coins. The high relief double eagle is estimated to have taken a total of twelve minutes per coin to produce with its several trips through the medal press and the annealing furnace. In sharp contrast, the low relief design that replaced it could be struck at the rate of eighty coins per minute on the regular coining presses.