LOT Old Heritage Auctions  /  2007 (ANA) Signature Coin Auction #444  / 

2062

1907 $20 High Relief, Wire Rim MS65 NGC

Currency:USD Category:Coins & Paper Money / US Coins Start Price:35,000.00 USD Estimated At:1.00 - 1,000,000.00 USD
1907 $20 High Relief, Wire Rim MS65 NGC
<B>1907 $20 High Relief, Wire Rim MS65 NGC.</B></I> Augustus Saint-Gaudens built his artistic reputation on grand-scale public and private works. In his lifetime, he sculpted subjects from goddesses to generals, all to ever-increasing acclaim. Art collectors still acknowledge his genius a century after his death, and they continue to pay sizable sums for his smaller works. In 2005, a 41-inch-high version of <I>Diana of the Tower</B></I> sold at auction for nearly half a million dollars; the original, an 18-foot-high rendition of the mythological huntress, was meant for the tower atop Madison Square Gardens.<BR> Saint-Gaudens did not live to see one of his last projects, the design for the double eagle, come to fruition. Yet that unfinished work is the source of his most enduring legacy. Despite his death on August 3, 1907, progress continued on the models. As Saint-Gaudens succumbed to cancer, he relied more and more on his capable assistant, Henry Hering. Hering was a vital contributor to the project and was an adept liaison between the visionary Saint-Gaudens and the technically minded Mint engravers. In his <I>A Guide Book of Double Eagle Gold Coins</B></I>, Q. David Bowers (2004) quotes a May 11, 1907 letter from Saint-Gaudens to Theodore Roosevelt, in which Saint-Gaudens praised Hering and stated that his assistant knew more about "the mechanical requirements of the coin." Hering finished many of the remaining details on his teacher's models and defended the interests of Saint-Gaudens and his widow in the face of months of hostility from Mint engravers.<BR> Saint-Gaudens is one of the best-known artists ever to design a coin, and the High Relief double eagles are the source of his greatest fame. The Gem offered here is a wonderful exemplar. Crisp devices, the result of multiple blows from the press, project from shining yellow-orange fields. Both sides feature an extensive wire rim. The surfaces are well-preserved; with no flaws discernible to the naked eye. An incredibly appealing representative of this highly sculptural and widely praised design.<BR><BR><B>Coin Engraver:</B> Augustus Saint-Gaudens<BR><BR><b>Shipping:</b> Coins & Currency (<a target="_blank" href="http://www.heritageauctions.com/common/shipping.php">view shipping information</a>)
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