Double eagle
Before, the most valuable American coin was the $10 gold eagle, first produced in 1795, two years after the United States Mint opened.
In 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt sought to beautify American coinage, and proposed Augustus Saint-Gaudens as an artist capable of the task.
[5] Although the sculptor had poor experiences with the Mint and its chief engraver, Charles E. Barber, Saint-Gaudens accepted Roosevelt's call.
[6] The work was subject to considerable delays, due to Saint-Gaudens's declining health and difficulties because of the high relief of his design.
The mint eventually insisted on a low-relief version, as the high-relief coin took up to eleven strikes to bring up the details which was harder for the older die presses.
These coins easily top the $10,000 price in circulated grades, but can reach nearly a half million dollars in the best states of preservation.
The design of the Saint-Gaudens coin was slightly changed once more when New Mexico and Arizona became states in 1912, and the number of stars along the rim was accordingly increased from 46 to 48.
On January 22, 2009, the U.S. Mint released ultra-high relief double eagles using the deep design that Saint-Gaudens envisioned, so that the U.S. Mint could, as its web site states "fulfill Augustus Saint-Gaudens' vision of an ultra high relief coin that could not be realized in 1907 with his legendary Double Eagle liberty design."
In 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt stopped the coinage of gold and made it illegal to own the metal (although coin collectors could retain their pieces).
A complete uncirculated set of all other Saint-Gaudens double eagles could be put together for just over three million dollars (less than half the price paid for the 1933), including the extremely rare, ultra-high relief, proof pattern.
Joan S. Langbord claimed that she inherited the coins from her father, a suspect in their original theft in 1933, and had found them in a safe deposit box in 2003.
[17] In September 2009, a federal judge ruled that the government had until the end of the month to return the confiscated coins to the Langbord family, or to prove that they had indeed been stolen.
[19] However, on April 17, 2015, the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Philadelphia overturned the jury's decision and ruled that the ten 1933 double eagles did indeed belong to Joan S. Langbord and that they must be returned to her family by the U.S. Mint.
The double eagle was one such coin, struck with a modified Liberty Head design featuring "★30★G★1.5★S★3.5★C★35★G★R★A★M★S★" on the obverse in 1879, similar to the Stella pattern.
[25][26] Twelve other specimens exist, two of which are held in the National Numismatic Collection and the United States Bullion Depository at Fort Knox.
