$20 St Gaudens Gold Coin

$20 Double Eagle
Saint Gaudens Obverse



$20 Double Eagle
Saint Gaudens Obverse

The $20 St Gaudens Gold Coin or St Gaudens Double Eagle is a gold coin issued by the US Mint for circulation in the United States. The $20 St Gaudens gold coin was issued from 1907 to 1933 and was the largest gold coin issued for circulation in the US. The coin was named after its designer Augustus St. Gaudens, who was an Irish-born American sculptor. St. Gaudens was hired to create new designs for all US gold coins at the beginning of the 20th century, when President Roosevelt started a campaign to beautify American coinage. Unfortunately, St. Gaudens didn't live long enough and could re-design only $20 St Gaudens gold coin.

The $20 St Gaudens gold coin had the same specifications as its predecessor the Liberty Head Double Eagle and they are as follows:

There are three major variations of the $20 St Gaudens gold coin: the original design had a high relief, no motto, and Roman numerals, minted only in the first year – 1907. The high relief of the coin was as intended by St. Gaudens himself, but it didn't work as the coin after re-using the same presses looked more like a medal than a coin and didn't stack well. One of the ways to keep the high relief was to reduce the diameter of the coin, but that would require getting consent from Congress and the $20 St Gaudens gold coin was redesigned with a lower relief. This second version of the coin was minted for two years, 1907 and 1908, and still had no motto, but Arabic numerals. The lack of the motto is explained that at the time Roosevelt did not approved and opposed a profane use of God's name, but in 1908, Congressed accepted a low requiring using the motto "In God We Trust" on all coins minted in the United States. As a result, there was the third type of the $20 St Gaudens coin: low relieve, with the motto, and with Arabic numerals.

When talking about $20 St Gaudens gold coin, you have to mention St Gaudens Double Eagle of 1933. Most of the Double Eagles minted in 1933 were melted with only a handful of coins (around 20) surviving and residing in private collections. One of them surfaced when the collection of King Farouk of Egypt and was auctioned, but disappeared again. Later, it was sold by Sotheby's in New York for $7,590,020, making it the most valuable coin in the world.

You can see some current listings for $20 St Gaudens gold coins below: