1908 Eagle - 1908 $10 Indian, With Motto, PCGS MS63. Here is a Mint State, lustrous 1908 Indian Head gold eagle. The surfaces are clean for the grade with no notable abrasion marks or other distractions. The yellow gold color shows the coins originality. The coin is well struck with full details on the Indians hair and the vanes in the feathers. 

Saint-Gaudens Indian Head eagle was minted from 1907 to 1933. In 1905 President Theodore Roosevelt visited the Smithsonian Institution and saw an exhibit of ancient Greek coins. He admired their high relief and bold designs and prevailed upon his friend Augustus Saint-Gaudens, who was in failing health, to design new gold coinage for the United States. Saint-Gaudens, who agreed with Roosevelt that the countrys coinage was hideous, redesigned the eagle and double eagle coins. Since Saint-Gaudens died in August, 1907, it is believed that the only new coin he actually saw was the gold eagle. The high relief of Saint-Gaudens Indian Head Eagle was criticized by Mint Engraver Charles Barber and other Mint workers.

The obverse consists of a close up profile of a head of Liberty facing left. Above her unrealistic war bonnet are thirteen stars in an arc. Below the truncation is the date. The origin of the profile is Saint-Gaudens own statue of Nike which is part of his memorial to General Sherman and can still be seen at the southern entrance to Central Park in New York City. Alice Butler was the model for the sculpture. Originally Saint-Gaudens wanted to place a wreath on Libertys head, but President Roosevelt insisted that it be a feathered war bonnet to give the coin a more nationalistic appeal. (Roosevelt also asked Saint-Gaudens to switch the designs of the eagle and double eagle coins. He felt that the close profile was more suited to an eagle size coin and that the striding figure of Liberty was better on the double eagle.)

The reverse of Saint-Gaudens Indian Head Eagle shows a powerful standing eagle that is suggestive of Egyptian art. It shows the eagle standing on a bundle of arrows that resemble fasces. In Roman iconography, fasces symbolized the power to kill or the power of life and death. Held on top of the arrows by the eagles talon is the olive branch, the traditional symbol of peace. Above the eagles head is UNITED STATES OF AMERICA and in the right field is the motto E PLURIBUS UNUM. The denomination TEN DOLLARS is below. On its edge, the coin has forty-six raised stars.

Roosevelt, a deeply religious man, felt that it was blasphemous to have Gods name on a coin. Coins were used for gambling, prostitution, hiring assassins, and worse. So he asked Saint-Gaudens to omit the motto In God We Trust. However, the motto was added in 1908 to make a Type 2 coin. Most likely the members of Congress who advocated for the addition of the motto on the coinage were trying to prove that they were not atheists. Obviously they were not particularly concerned about maintaining the separation between church and state.