Augustus Saint-Gaudens
(modified by Charles E. Barber)
Diameter:
±34
millimeters
Metal
content:
Gold - 90%
Other - 10%
Weight:
±516
grains (±33.4 grams)
Edge:
|******E|*PLURIBUS*|UNUM*****
Mintmark:
None (for Philadelphia)
above the date
1911 St. Gaudens, Matte Proof
The Philadelphia Mint returned to the
matte finish for 1911 double eagles. With 63 examples
reported in the population reports, and most of those
in gem grades or finer, this date is the fifth scarcest
of the 10-coin series in Proof grades. Most have a
distinctive mustard color. Of course, all are rare
and desirable, and few collectors can ever dream of
owning a single Proof example of this series, let
alone a date collection. All known 1911 Proof double
eagles were apparently struck in the matte finish.
Memorable auctions records include the example of
late 2005 that sold for $ 184,000.
Though Pres. Theodore Roosevelt was
devoutly religious and a Freemason, he disagreed with
Congress and the average citizen on the need-or the
desirability-of having God's name placed on coins.
Ever since the Rev. M. R. Watkinson had come up with
the idea (1861), officialdom and the general public
approved of keeping IN GOD WE TRUST on the coins;
possibly some dimly remembered the line from one of
the later stanzas of Francis Scott Key's "The
Battle of Fort McHenry" (later renamed "The
Star-Spangled Banner"): "And this be our
motto, In God is our trust." Roosevelt's objection
to the motto is more consonant with the First Amendment
principle of separation of church and state; his line
of reasoning is discussed in Chap. 37, Sect, vi, introductory
text.
Though there is much to be said for Roosevelt's view,
Congress disagreed, feeling (like much of the general
public) that anyone opposing the use of God's name
on coins was of necessity an atheist and probably
an anarchist or even a Bolshevik. Congress therefore
ordered that henceforth all coins large enough to
accommodate the motto should do so, in compliance
with the Act of March 3, 1865.
Barber
reworked the double eagle rev. to carry this motto.
His revision had nine tail feathers instead of the
former eight, and 33 rays instead of 34, but the location
of rays remained unaltered. Barber omitted one at
extreme 1., and made the heavy rays thinner and some
of them longer.
Until Pres. Franklin
Delano Roosevelt abolished gold coinage in 1933, there
was only one more design change. Coins of 1912-33
show 48 obv. stars instead of the former 46, commemorating
the admission of New Mexico and Arizona as forty-seventh
and forty-eighth states, Jan. 6 and Feb. 14, 1912.
The two extra stars were added to the end of the curved
row at lower r., about 5:00, among oak leaves below
date, but without other design modification. Barber
evidently did this by sinking a master die from a
1908-11 hub and punching in the stars by hand, thereafter
in turn raising working hubs from it and sinking working
dies.
Relative rarity of the
later dates, unlike those of earlier years, owes less
to limited mintages than to extensive meltages and
random survival of specimens in French and Swiss banks
during the decades after the Great Recall of 1933-34.
Secrecy about some of the rarer dates, on both sides
of the Atlantic, has obscured the picture: Thanks
to the unlamented Leland Howard and his Office of
Domestic Gold and Silver Operations (ODGSO), federal
interference with imports of numismatic material increased
during the 1950s and '60s side by side with official
paranoia about collectors, and with collectors' fears
that Treasury snoops would search, seize, and destroy
first, before any legal actions for recovery could
be instituted. In more recent years, now that Howard
and the ODGSO are as dead as the Volstead Act and
one no longer needs a license to import gold coins,
the picture has become clearer-and the gold coins
costlier.
However, exact numbers
rediscovered have remained elusive, partly because
many dealers irrationally fear that such information
might lower prices.
Wholesale
meltage destroyed the majority of the dates 1912-33.
This has not significantly affected 1928, which has
the largest mintage of any gold coin of any denomination
in American history. In a few instances (1920 S, 1921,
1927 D, 1930 S, 1931 D) low mintage aggravated the
problem, so that fewer specimens reached Europe. A
few dates (1913 S, 1924 S, 1926 D) were virtually
unknown to American collectors until the 1950s, when
handfuls were recovered in France.
As a result, when specimens of the rarer years are
offered at all, they are normally uncirculated with
the usual bag marks; but the same remark also applies
to many of the commoner dates.
As a result, when specimens of the rarer years are
offered at all, they are normally uncirculated with
the usual bag marks; but the same remark also applies
to many of the commoner dates.
There is one important var. in this group, the overdate
1909/8. As with the 1918/7 D nickel and S quarter,
this resulted from use of both 1909 and 1908 hubs
on a single working die blank, probably during fall
1908 when working dies were being prepared for both
years. This var. was discovered by Edgar H. Adams
in 1910, then forgotten until its rediscovery about
1943. It is less scarce than the normal date except
in mint state.
Mintmark D is from a wide punch (boldface extended,
in typographical language) through 1910, as on the
eagles. This was difficult to fit between rays above
date, so that on many specimens the D leans 1. Coins
of 1911 and later years from Denver show a tiny mintmark
similar to that on cents. It is barely possible that
coins of 1910 D or 1911 D may exist with both styles
of mintmark; if so, the 1910 Small D and/or the 1911
Large D would be great rarities.
In March 1933, Presidential Order 6260 prevented any
further release of gold coins from the mints. Though
eagles had been legally issued in January and February
from Philadelphia, double eagles were not. Nevertheless,
an unknown quantity managed to leave the Mint Bureau,
allegedly obtained by clandestine exchange for other
double eagles in unissued stocks at the Philadelphia
Mint. B. Max Mehl, in the Roach sale (1944), admitted
to having sold two of the 8-10 then known. The first
one to appear at auction (Col. Flanagan's, also in
1944) was seized by the Treasury Department, as have
all others to come to federal attention since then:
NumRev 13, p. 17 (1/47). King Farouk's (Farouk:185)
was withdrawn but not returned to the Treasury; whereabouts
unknown. At least one other was reportedly flung into
the ocean to avoid seizure, prior to 1956. The only
chance anyone has to see what these legendary coins
look like is to view the exhibit at the Smithsonian
Institution.
What the first Roosevelt began in 1907, the second
ended in 1933; and the date 1933 forms as rare an
end to the double-eagle series as 1849 did to its
beginning.
The Coinage Act of July 23, 1965 (PL 89-81), Sect.
392, has apparently restored legal-tender status to
the double eagle.
MOTTO ADDED
Designer, Engraver, as before. Mints, Philadelphia
(no mint-mark), San Francisco (mintmark S), Denver
(D). Mintmarks above date. Physical Specifications,
Authorizing Acts, as before.
Grade range, VERY FINE to UNC.; not collected below
EXTREMELY FINE except for extreme rarities. Later
dates are almost always UNC. with varying degrees
of bag marks. Grade standards, as before.
Barber
reworked the double eagle rev. to carry this motto.
His revision had nine tail feathers instead of the
former eight, and 33 rays instead of 34, but the location
of rays remained unaltered. Barber omitted one at
extreme 1., and made the heavy rays thinner and some
of them longer. 
Wholesale
meltage destroyed the majority of the dates 1912-33.
This has not significantly affected 1928, which has
the largest mintage of any gold coin of any denomination
in American history. In a few instances (1920 S, 1921,
1927 D, 1930 S, 1931 D) low mintage aggravated the
problem, so that fewer specimens reached Europe. A
few dates (1913 S, 1924 S, 1926 D) were virtually
unknown to American collectors until the 1950s, when
handfuls were recovered in France.