1907 High Relief Wire Rim - 1907 $20 High Relief NGC PF63. This shimmering, Select proof 1907 High Relief, Wire Rim double eagle has a three dimensional, medallic strike. Full details are on the left knee, the Capitol building, and the high points at the top of the wings. There is slight weakness at the bottom of the reverse rays of the sun. Of course no wear is present on this pleasing piece. Aside from some wispy lines and a few hairlines hidden in the rays of the obverse, the surfaces are clean and original. The combined effect of the mint luster and sharp strike give the coin its visual satisfaction and tremendous appeal.
The double eagle is considered by some to be the most beautiful coin of all time and Augustus Saint-Gaudens most famous work. Certainly numismatists feel that the double eagle is his most important work. Struck in high relief, Liberty is seen at full length facing the viewer as the sun rises behind her. She holds a torch, symbol of liberty, in her right hand and an olive branch in her left.  On her right at the bottom is the Capitol building. LIBERTY is inscribed above her head, and she is surrounded by forty-six stars, one for each state in the Union at the time. Saint-Gaudens took the figure of liberty from his statue of Victory in New York City. The reverse of the coin shows a magnificent eagle in flight to the left above the sun. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA and TWENTY DOLLARS form a double arc above it. The words are separated by dots. 

Saint-Gaudens deliberately left off the motto IN GOD WE TRUST at the request of President Roosevelt, a religious man who felt that it was blasphemous to have Gods name inscribed on a coin. He did not wish the name of Lord on coins to be dropped and stepped on or passed around brothels, saloons, gambling halls or used for other immoral purposes.

Saint-Gaudens was born in Ireland, the son of a shoemaker. He became one of Americas most successful sculptors of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In 1848, his family moved from Dublin to New York before his first birthday. When he was thirteen, Saint-Gaudens left school and became an apprentice to a cameo cutter. He also took classes at Cooper Union and the National Academy of Design. When he was nineteen, he moved to Europe where he studied classical art and architecture.      

His first commission was a statue of Admiral Farragut that is still in Madison Square Park in New York. By the 1890s Saint-Gaudens had produced his statues of Diana and Abraham Lincoln, both considered some of his greatest works. He also created well known works in Boston and Chicago. He became part of a group of new artists and architects and worked for an architectural firm for whom he produced a group of monuments and decorative sculpture. Throughout his career, he worked with architects creating works that were designed specifically for the sites they were building. At the entrance to New Yorks Central Park is his bronze statue of General Sherman led by Victory. It took him eleven years to complete this project.

Saint-Gaudens moved to his summer home in Cornish, New Hampshire in 1900. Joined there by a community of artists, Saint-Gaudens spent his final years. He died of stomach cancer in 1907 just after he created the beautiful high relief models for the eagle and double eagle coins.

When Roosevelt saw the first double eagle, he knew that Saint-Gaudens had created a masterpiece. What he could not have known was that his cousin, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, would recall all privately owned gold including many of the Saint-Gaudens twenties. 

Theodore Roosevelt had a vision of a totally redesigned United States coinage. Now that he was president and could act on his feelings. He spoke of his pet crime, which was to bypass the mundane Charles Barber, the Mint Engraver, who Roosevelt felt was incapable of creating a grand new coinage design. He recruited Saint-Gaudens to aid him in this new project. The two had met in 1905 when Roosevelt chose Saint-Gaudens to design the inaugural medal for his second term as president. Not only did Roosevelt love the medal, but he realized that Saint-Gaudens shared his admiration for the high relief coinage of ancient Greece. Despite the fact that his health was in decline, the artist accepted Roosevelts challenge to redesign Americas coinage. Although he never lived to see his designs in circulation, many feel that High Relief double eagle is finest United States coin ever minted. 

After Saint-Gaudens succumbed to stomach cancer, Henry Hering, his student and assistant, attempted to reduce the relief of the Ultra High Relief models and have them put into production. At each step of the way, he was opposed by the jealous Charles Barber, who felt that even the lower relief coin was simply impractical for commerce and banking. Because of Barbers interference, Hering decided to go to France to have Saint-Gaudens bas-reliefs made to coin size. When he returned, President Roosevelt had to intervene to get the coins minted. Finally, 12,367 High Relief coins were struck.

There are two varieties, the flat rim and the knife-rim, which are also called the flat edge and the wire edge double eagle. The wire edge is actually a rim or flange around half or more of one or both sides of the coin. It was made when metal was squeezed between the collar and the die. Most researchers believe that the flange was made unintentionally since it caused problems in ejecting the coins as they were struck.  Charles Barber used this characteristic as one of his reasons to remake the coin with lower relief, and he did so with the date in Arabic numbers on later 1907 coins.

The area of proof High Relief double eagles is somewhat controversial. PCGS, one of the two major grading firms does not recognize proof Saint-Gaudens double eagles in any grade and has certified none. On the other hand, NGC has certified 246. In its population report NGC shows 144 Wire Edge proof coins in all grades. The PF63 is in the lower middle of the group.