Technical specifications:
• Gold alloy, 90% gold and 10% copper
• Diameter: 34 mm (1.3386 inches)
• Thickness: 2 mm (0.0787 inches)
• Weight: 516 grains (33.436 grams)
• Actual gold weight: 464.4 grains (30.093 grams)
• Blows needed to strike pieces on 172 ton hydraulic
press: 3-5
Total Mintage: Usually
quoted at 11,250 pieces, as per Walter Breen, struck in
late November and December 1907. After modern research in
the Mint archives it has been determined that the correct
mintage would be 12,367 pieces. Those of November are said
to have numbered up to 3,000 pieces, of the variety later
named ‘flat rim’ (see below). Approximately
8,250 pieces minted in December of the ‘wire rim’
variety. While these numbers have not been confirmed by
contemporary Mint documents, they appear to be close to
correct, as compared to the number of survivors of these
issues.
Rim and edge varieties: As explained above, two different
rim varieties were struck. The flat rim is the scarcer variant
of the two, although the difference, price-wise, is small.
It is not only identified by the rim itself, and a close
look at the edge might be a better method to reveal the
variety for some coins. Most easily are uncirculated coins.
The wire rim, or knife rim as it is called in some references
has a tiny raised rim around the full circumference of the
coin, with the flat rim does not have this raised piece
of metal. The existence of these two different rim varieties
is believed to have been without any specific reason by
the Mint, and it appears it was just the use of different
collars to strike the high reliefs.
High Relief, Collar I (Flat Rim) – Completely level
rim, without any extra metal near the edge.
High Relief, Collar II (Wire Rim) – Note the extra
metal, most visible at the upper right.
Two different collars produced these rim varieties, both
having a minor difference in the edge lettering. The first,
named collar I, was used to produce the flat rim variety,
and shows the bases of the M in E PLURIBUS UNUM level. On
the coins with the wire rim, struck using collar II the
bases of the M are slant. This difference is relatively
unknown, but is the key factor in identifying circulated
coins which might not have the full wire rim visible on
both sides. On some examples the wire rim is not complete,
causing some controversy whether a given coin is a wire
rim or flat rim.
Striking Characteristics:
Striking weakness is a uniform problem with the Saint-Gaudens
High Relief double eagle, and was also the main reason for
discontinuation of this famous type. Despite that fact that
the Mint employees struck the coins up to five individual
times, there is still some striking weakness noted on both
sides. Because of the high relief of the design, the weakness
is uniform, and the ‘standard’ weakness can
easily be differentiated from a poorly struck coin once
the key points of the design have been visualized. Below
are a number of areas of the design which always have some
weakness, but as always differences are to be noted on each
individual coin which is examined.
Even the finest known regular business strikes of the High
Relief will feature some minor weakness in these areas,
a characteristic which must have annoyed the Mint workers
at the time with every single coin that was struck. These
striking problems were the main reason why the Mint had
planned to lower the relief even before the first coins
were struck. As can be seen from the above pictures most
of the striking weakness is noted near the rim. The reason
for this comes from the desire of Theodore Roosevelt and
Augustus Saint-Gaudens to match the design with ancient
coins of Greece. Because of the high relief of the design
the large hydraulic press of the Philadelphia Mint, striking
with an impressive 172 tons of pressure, was not capable
of letting the metal flow to the deeper parts of the design,
near the periphery.
