1907 High Relief St Gaudens Wire Edge $20 NGC MS66

President Teddy Roosevelt was quite dissatisfied with US coinage and in 1906 hired sculptor Augustus St. Gaudens to redesign all US coinage for a $5,000 fee. He managed to finish the designs for the Eagle and Double Eagle before dying of Cancer in August 1907. The first version have Ultra High Relief with only 22 minted most likely as a pattern. The High Relief regular issues came out in two varieties – Wire Edge, like our coin and Flat Edge, with the latter being more scarce at 1/3 the population. 12,367 were minted and several thousand were probably melted after FDR’s gold order of 1933 The fields on our coin are remarkably free of abrasions or marks as could be expected from a MS66. There is one tiny mark below the eagle, in the rays of the sun and that could have held it back from a 67 Auction for the benefit of Catholic Relief Services overseas emergency relief programs
Condition Report: NGC slab 7