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High Relief Informaiton
High Relief

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.

DATE MINTAGE FOR CIRCULATION MINTAGE OF PROOFS NOTES
1907
372,917
estimated
40-50
Includes Ultra-High Reliefs, High Reliefs, and Arabic Numeral varieties. 1907 $20 High Relief NGC PF63


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