1937

1907 $10 Indian. Wire rim, periods NGC MS65

Currency:USD Category:Coins & Paper Money / US Coins Start Price:20,000.00 USD Estimated At:40,000.00 - 43,000.00 USD
1907 $10 Indian. Wire rim, periods NGC MS65
Called by everyone and the grading service the "wire rim" variety, the proper Mint term is "fin" to describe the fine raised knife edge of gold at the extreme outer periphery of the obverse and reverse. The surfaces are outstanding, with satiny fullness throughout. The fields show diagnostic die polishing lines which swirl across many of the devices. The net mintage is believed to be only 448 pieces, after some were melted from the original 500 coined. According to the grapevine, these were not meant for circulation, but were instead given out to VIPs and other personages, hence many of these are not well preserved. The Judd pattern reference even refers to them as patterns.

"That Madman"

The story behind the first design for the new $10 piece is always worth a few lines. First, some background: Having assumed the Vice Presidency, Theodore Roosevelt was resigned to the fact that his political career had perhaps reached a dead end. During the inauguration, political boss Mark Hanna, who had been apprehensive about TR's joining the 1900 Republican ticket, is quoted as saying: "Do you realize that the only thing standing between that madman and the White House is a bullet?" Hanna's was an extremely clairvoyant observation. President McKinley was indeed shot by Leo Czolgosz on September 13, 1901. Theodore Roosevelt was duly sworn in as the nation's 26th President at the Wilcox Mansion near Buffalo, New York, on September 14, 1901 upon McKinley expiring. Were it not for this twist of Fate, we should not be offering you this remarkable wire edge $10 Indian gold coin!

President Theodore Roosevelt, once in office, took it upon himself to replace the designs of our national coinage. In a letter to the American sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Roosevelt called the coin designs then in circulation "atrociously hideous", and asked the famous sculptor then at the height of his fame to help redesign the coinage. Saint-Gaudens originally wanted to have a full standing figure of Liberty on the $10 denomination, but Roosevelt wanted only Liberty's head, so as not to detract from the shining full person of Liberty already set to adorn the double eagle. Saint-Gaudens adapted the head of Nike from his General Sherman monument (1905) for the obverse portrait. Roosevelt then requested an Indian war bonnet be added, possibly to conceal the Sherman monument connection which might upset opinion in the South. No Native American woman would have worn such a absurd sun-hat, of course, but Roosevelt insisted, so there it is.

This coin is a joyful reminder of a charismatic man from the White House who took an interest in the goings on at the U.S. Mint, and had the power to see it through to the end, despite being a madman! (#8850)