1913-S $20 Saint Gaudens Double Eagle PCGS AU55

Intriguingly, this is a rare coin, however not as rare as its low mintage of 34,000 would suggest. As Jeff Garrett writes, "This date is very popular as the third lowest mintage Double Eagle after the 1907 High Relief and the 1908-S .... For some reason, a significant number were saved; they probably sat out the first half of the [twentieth] century in European or South American bank vaults. The 1913-S is a classic conditional rarity."

PCGS has graded 45 as AU55 with 1,974 finer. Collectors Universe gives this issue a price of $3,250.00 in AU55.

Augustus Saint-Gaudens, who crafted the design of this stunning coin series. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

Numismatic scholar and art critic Cornelius Vermeule writes, "The double eagle is perhaps the most majestic coin ever to bear our national imprint .… The eagle in flight against the sun on the reverse achieves complete domination of motion and expanding vista over the confines of a tiny tondo. " Discussing both Saint-Gaudens' $10 eagle along with his $20 double eagle, Vermeule writes, "Both coins seems as modern a century after they were conceived as any issues, American or otherwise, produced in the past generation, and compared with what has been tolerated heretofore in the United States, both burst as artistic skyrockets in the horizons of our academic creativity."