Augustus Saint-Gaudens rose to fame as the great designer of the world’s most valuable American coin ever.
In 1888, Augustus was born in Dublin, Ireland. When he was around six months old, his family moved to America. Born of a French father and an Irish mother and now, being raised in New York, Saint-Gaudens had a very rich and very diverse cultural background.
Being attracted to the world of the arts from an early age, Saint-Gaudens started taking art classes at the National Academy of Design and at the Cooper Union. At the same time, he also underwent apprenticeship to a cameo-cutter. He completed this apprenticeship at the tender age of 19. Wit his apprenticeship over, Saint-Gaudens looked for more ways to study art. He then moved to Paris and became a student at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, more specifically in Francois Jouffroy’s atelier.
Later, around 1870, he left Paris and travel to another great European city, Rome. In Rome, he studied art and architecture. It was also in Rome where he received his first commission as an artist. It was also in Rome where he crossed paths with an American art student by the name of Augusta Homer. He fell in love with her and by 1877, they were married.
In 1876, Saint-Gaudens received his first big break as an artist. He was commissioned to create a monument for Civil War Admiral David Farragut. The monument was to be done in New York’s famed Madison Square. Saint-Gaudens’ friend, Stanford White did the architectural setting of the monument. When Saint-Gaudens unveiled his work to the public in 1881, he was met with tremendous praise and success. Many applauded the naturalism in his work as well as the sincerity and lack of any whiff of pompousness or pretentiousness in his creation. With his triumph in this creation, he was established as a great sculptor.
After the Farragut monument, a string of great monuments followed. Saint-Gaudens did the Standing Lincoln in Chicago, a work still deemed as United States’ best portrait statue. Another famous work is the Robert Gold Shaw Memorial in Boston. This bronze bas-relief took Saint-Gaudens fourteen years to make. And even after the work was debuted to the public, Saint-Gaudens still performed minor revisions.
Aside from sculptures, Saint-Gaudens took great interest in using his relief portraits for medallions. Eventually, this lead Saint-Gaudens to the path of designing coinage. Personally chosen by Theodore Roosevelt to create a new design for American coinage, Saint-Gaudens set on to work on what is now considered the most beautiful American coin ever produced. Saint-Gaudens created a high-relief $20 gold coin. In order to make the coin design suitable for production, the US Mint adapted the design into a flattened-down version. The coin was so intricate that it took the US Mint eleven strikes to get all the details into the coin.
Dubbed as the Gold Double Eagle, Saint-Gaudens’ coin had two version, one was the ‘Saint-Gaudens Arabic Numerals’. The other one is the ‘Saint-Gaudens High Relief Roman Numeral’ for 1907. In a 2002 auction, the 1933 version of the coin sold for $ 7.5 million.
|
Auctions in eBay
|
| 1927 PCGS Double Eagle 20 Gold St Gaudens PCGS MS 64 Outstanding Beauty | |
 |
$1,700.00 Time Remaining: 1h 15m |
| 1924 20 St Gaudens Gold Double Eagle MS 62 NGC | |
 |
$1,500.00 Time Remaining: 5d 6h 4m Buy It Now for only: $1,500.00 Buy It Now | Add to watch list |
| 1915 20 St Gaudens Gold Double Eagle MS 62 NGC | |
 |
$1,744.75 Time Remaining: 11h 51m |
| 1908 No Motto 20 Gold St Gaudens NGC MS63 | |
 |
$1,525.00 Time Remaining: 13d 2h 45m Buy It Now for only: $1,525.00 Buy It Now | Add to watch list |
| 1924 Double Eagle 20 Gold St Gaudens PCGS MS 64 Rev Struck Thru | |
 |
$1,899.00 Time Remaining: 8h 35m |
| 1910 D 20 Gold St Gaudens Double Eagle NGC MS62 | |
 |
$1,575.00 Time Remaining: 20d 21h 52m Buy It Now for only: $1,575.00 Buy It Now | Add to watch list |
| 1908 20 No Motto Gold St Gaudens | |
 |
$1,750.00 Time Remaining: 2d 2h Buy It Now for only: $2,500.00 Buy It Now | Bid now | Add to watch list |
| 1924 20 USA GOLD ST GAUDENS DOUBLE EAGLE | |
 |
$1,470.00 Time Remaining: 2d 23h 38m Buy It Now for only: $1,470.00 Buy It Now | Add to watch list |
| 1927 20 Gold St Gaudens Double Eagle NGC MS64 | |
 |
$1,799.00 Time Remaining: 27d 25m Buy It Now for only: $1,799.00 Buy It Now | Add to watch list |
| 1927 St Gaudens 20 gold g1 | |
 |
$1,400.00 Time Remaining: 5d 58m Buy It Now for only: $1,400.00 Buy It Now | Add to watch list |
| 1925 20 Gold St Gaudens Double Eagle PCGS MS62 | |
 |
$1,599.00 Time Remaining: 11d 21h 7m Buy It Now for only: $1,599.00 Buy It Now | Add to watch list |
| 7 Coin 20 St Gaudens Gold Double Eagle Date Set MS 64 PCGS SKU 90912 | |
 |
$11,045.77 Time Remaining: 7d 5h 25m Buy It Now for only: $11,045.77 Buy It Now | Add to watch list |
| 1924 P 20 Gold St Gaudens NGC MS61 | |
 |
$1,529.99 Time Remaining: 29d 3h 40m Buy It Now for only: $1,529.99 Buy It Now | Add to watch list |
| 1911 D 2000 ST GAUDENS GOLD PCGS MS 64 RATTLER PREMIUM QUALITY | |
 |
$1,695.00 Time Remaining: 14d 7m Buy It Now for only: $1,695.00 Buy It Now | Add to watch list |
| 1904 Double Eagle 20 Gold St Gaudens PCGS UNC Details light cleaning | |
 |
$1,400.00 Time Remaining: 10d 3h 30m Buy It Now for only: $1,400.00 Buy It Now | Add to watch list |
| Hi Grade PCGS MS64 1925 20 US St Gaudens Double Eagle 90 Gold Coin Free Ship | |
 |
$1,661.61 Time Remaining: 6d 6h 3m Buy It Now for only: $1,661.61 Buy It Now | Add to watch list |
| PCGS MS 64 STUNNING RATTLER 1908 20 ST GAUDENS ORIGINAL PCGS RATTLER HOLDER | |
 |
$1,799.00 Time Remaining: 1d 3h 11m Buy It Now for only: $1,799.00 Buy It Now | Add to watch list |
| 1927 20 Gold St Gaudens PCGS MS64 | |
 |
$1,649.80 Time Remaining: 15d 1h 23m Buy It Now for only: $1,649.80 Buy It Now | Add to watch list |
| 1926 20 Gold St Gaudens Type 3 With Motto PCGS MS65+ CAC Approved | |
 |
$2,475.00 Time Remaining: 29d 7h 33m Buy It Now for only: $2,475.00 Buy It Now | Add to watch list |
| 1926 20 Gold St Gaudens NGC MS62 | |
 |
$1,475.00 Time Remaining: 13d 3h 27m Buy It Now for only: $1,475.00 Buy It Now | Add to watch list |