1922 Saint Gaudens - 1922 $20 St. Gaudens NGC MS62. This lustrous, eye-appealing Mint State 1922 Saint Gaudens has original, clean surfaces for the grade. There are no abrasion marks or other distractions that require individual description. The strike is above average with full details on the Capitol building and most of the reverse feathers.

 

The 1922 double eagle was a low relief version of Saint-Gaudens original. It has Arabic numerals for the date instead of the Roman numerals seen on the previous two issues. In 1908, despite President Roosevelts preferences to the contrary, the motto IN GOD WE TRUST was added to the reverse. In 1912 two stars were added to the obverse of the coin to correspond with the new states added to the Union.

 

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. It took him eleven years to complete this project.

 

Because of its availability this 1922 double eagle makes an excellent type coin and would be a welcome addition to a gold type set.