The 1852 date was a heavily minted (over 2 million produced), but like all Type One double eagles it is distinctly uncommon in Mint State and rare in Select Mint State. Type collectors usually focus on the 1851, 1852, 1853 and 1861 double eagles to find a suitable specimen. Gold specialists compete for these dates,…
The first Morgan dollars had an eagle with eight tailfeathers. Mint officials soon received feedback from ornithophiles that an even number of tailfeathers was an impossibility and a decision was soon made to change the design to seven feathers. Existing dies were reworked, creating the 7/8 Tailfeather varieties, although the number of original feather tips…
The 1927-S double eagle has a long history of being among the scarcest and most prized dates in the Saint-Gaudens double eagle series. No significant quantities were ever released to the Treasurer, and the vast majority of the more than 3 million-coin mintage was later melted. In Saint-Gaudens Double Eagles, Roger Burdette writes: “After World War II,…
The design of the double eagle was modified to include the motto IN GOD WE TRUST on the reverse in 1866, initiating the popular Type Two design. The San Francisco Mint struck both Type One and Type Two twenties that year, but all double eagles produced at the Philadelphia Mint were of the new Motto…
The last decade of Saint-Gaudens double eagle production can be classified broadly as having resulted in three distinct types of issues. The first are mass-produced and readily available Philadelphia issues struck from 1924 through 1928. Those five dates accounts for hundreds of thousands, if not millions of high-grade Saint-Gaudens twenty dollar gold pieces on the secondary market. The second group includes the scarce, heavily melted branch mint issues manufactured during that same…
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