1925-S Saint Gaudens NGC AU58 - 1925-S $20 St. Gaudens NGC AU58. This near-Mint State 1925-S Saint-Gaudens Double Eagle is in original condition and has clean surfaces for the grade. Just a touch of wear on the highest points keeps this attractive piece from a Mint State designation. Unlike most coins of this issue that have light details on the obverse, this piece is well struck with full details on Libertys bosom. The reverse is also bold with strong details on the eagles feathers. Original mint luster is seen within the devices on both sides of the coin.

Low relief Saint-Gaudens double eagle coins were also issued in 1907. They continued until 1933, when all gold production stopped. The low relief coins had 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.

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.

The San Francisco Mint opened in 1854 because of the need to coin gold resulting from the California Gold Rush. In the West there was an abundance of gold bullion, nuggets and dust; however, there was also an acute shortage of circulating coinage. Congress authorized this mint to relieve the shortage and coin silver and gold and because transportation of bullion to Philadelphia was time consuming and hazardous. Because of its proximity to the Gold Rush area, San Francisco was chosen as the site of the new mint.  In 1874 it moved into a new building called the Old United States Mint or the Granite Lady. It is one of the few structures that survived the earthquake of 1906. It remained in service as a mint until 1938, when the present facility opened.