1911 $20 Saint Gaudens Double Eagle PCGS MS63

Here is a popular issue of the “Saint,” considered by many to be the most beautiful coin design on United States coinage. Please take a close look at the photos provided by AU Capital Management. PCGS has graded 1,103 as MS63 with 788 finer. Collectors Universe prices this issue at $3,750.00 in MS63.

President Theodore Roosevelt in circa 1904. He honored Augustus Saint-Gaudens with a memorial speech. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

After his death, Theodore Roosevelt honored Augustus Saint-Gaudens as an artist and friend by saying in a 1908 memorial speech that his double eagle and eagle were “more beautiful than any coins since the days of the Greeks, and they achieve their striking beauty because Saint-Gaudens not only possessed a perfect mastery in the physical address of his craft, but also a daring and original imagination.”

In a thank you letter to Roosevelt, Saint-Gaudens’ widow, Augusta, wrote, “Such a tribute from you would, I know, have meant much to him especially the recognition of his labor on the coins into which he put his whole heart. Your presence with Mrs. Roosevelt gave to the memorial a character and meaning which without you it could not have happened and I hardly know how to thank you both for this expression of your friendliness now that he is gone.”