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.
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Auctions in eBay
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| 1924 NGC 20 GOLD St Gaudens Double Eagle MS 64 BEAUTIFUL | |
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$1,880.00 (12 Bids) Time Remaining: 6h 58m |
| 2009 ULTRA HIGH RELIEF 20 ST GAUDENS DOUBLE EAGLE MINT SHIPPED DATE 2 27 09 | |
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$5,500.00 Time Remaining: 28d 21h 45m Buy It Now for only: $5,500.00 Buy It Now | Add to watch list |
| 1924 20 ST GAUDENS GOLD COIN PCGS MS63 4223135 | |
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$1,734.00 (7 Bids) Time Remaining: 1d 7h 41m |
| 1924 NGC 20 GOLD St Gaudens Double Eagle NGC MS 64 GORGEOUS | |
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$1,791.00 (9 Bids) Time Remaining: 2d 7h 12m |
| 1908 20 ST GAUDENS MS65 NGC No Motto | |
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$2,250.00 Time Remaining: 20d 7m Buy It Now for only: $2,250.00 Buy It Now | Add to watch list |
| 1924 20 ST GAUDENS GOLD COIN PCGS MS63 1290375 | |
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$1,625.00 (5 Bids) Time Remaining: 1d 8h 11m |
| 1927 NGC 20 GOLD St Gaudens Double Eagle NGC MS 63 BEAUTIFUL | |
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$1,700.00 (16 Bids) Time Remaining: 1d 7h 20m |
| 1924 PCGS 20 GOLD St Gaudens Double Eagle PCGS MS 62 NICE | |
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$1,700.00 (13 Bids) Time Remaining: 1d 7h 8m |
| 1926 20 ST GAUDENS MS65 PCGS | |
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$2,250.00 Time Remaining: 27d 22h 51m Buy It Now for only: $2,250.00 Buy It Now | Add to watch list |
| 1907 St Gaudens 20 Gold Double Eagle PCGS MS63 OGH | |
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$2,100.00 (1 Bid) Time Remaining: 2d 3h 54m |
| GEM BU EXTREMELY HIGH GRADE 1924 20 GOLD ST GAUDENS NO RESERVE | |
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$1,550.00 (20 Bids) Time Remaining: 1d 8h 1m |
| USA 1907 P old 20 St Gaudens American Classic Money lustrous well detailed | |
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$1,849.99 Time Remaining: 3d 22h 34m Buy It Now for only: $1,849.99 Buy It Now | Add to watch list |
| 1924 20 St Gaudens Double Eagle Gold Coin PCGS Certified MS64 | |
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$1,800.00 (1 Bid) Time Remaining: 1d 4h 41m |
| 1927 20 St Gaudens Double Eagle Gold Coin PCGS Certified MS63 | |
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$1,725.00 (2 Bids) Time Remaining: 1d 4h 41m |
| 1924 PCGS 20 GOLD St Gaudens Double Eagle PCGS MS 62 LOVELY COIN | |
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$1,653.00 (9 Bids) Time Remaining: 3d 7h 1m |
| 1914D 20 Gold St Gaudens PCGS MS64 | |
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$1,965.00 Time Remaining: 6d 39m Buy It Now for only: $1,965.00 Buy It Now | Add to watch list |
| SUPER 1908 DATED DOUBLE EAGLE ST GAUDENS 2000 GOLD COIN | |
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$1,476.00 (25 Bids) Time Remaining: 2d 3h 12m |
| 1922 NGC 20 GOLD St Gaudens Double Eagle NGC MS 62 NICE | |
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$1,379.00 (4 Bids) Time Remaining: 4d 6h 59m |
| 1925 S 20 ST GAUDENS EF45 ICG | |
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$3,250.00 Time Remaining: 27d 23h 3m Buy It Now for only: $3,250.00 Buy It Now | Add to watch list |
| 1926 ST GAUDENS 2000 GOLD COIN | |
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$1,599.00 Time Remaining: 2d 4h 50m Buy It Now for only: $1,775.00 Buy It Now | Bid now | Add to watch list |