Lot 1231
1907 HIGH RELIEF NGC GRADED PROOF 63. NGC graded Proof 63. This is widely considered to be the most beautiful design ever executed on an American coin. Of course, the "ultra" high relief is truest to Augustus St. Gaudens original design plan, but with just a handful known, and priced at over $1,000,000 per, that makes this coin a much more affordable alternative. The surfaces are extremely well preserved on this coin, and show little evidence of handling marks. Satiny in color and surface quality, examination with a glass notes the microscopic swirl lines from the die preparation, seen on all specimens. We note a single tick mark hidden on the eagle's chest, and a couple of others that are microscopic in size.
President Theodore Roosevelt had been trying to persuade St. Gaudens to submit new designs for coins for years, and finally persuaded St. Gaudens to design the presidential inaugural medal in 1905. After St. Gaudens had a run in with Mint officials in 1891, he swore he would go to his grave before having anything to do with the Mint Bureau. After completing the inaugural medal, President Roosevelt was so pleased with St. Gaudens work that he confided in him his longtime dream, to replace the "atrociously hideous" coinage designs then in circulation, wanting to restore our national coinage some of the beauty and dignity of the ancient Greek coins. St. Gaudens replied to the President on January 9, 1906: "Whatever I produce cannot be worse than the inanities now displayed on our coins." St. Gaudens produced models, but then his health declined, so he gave more and more of his duties to his assistant Henry Hering. On May 29, 1907 St. Gaudens wrote Roosevelt: "If you succeed in getting the best of the polite Mr. Barber…or others in charge, you will have done a greater work than putting through the Panama Canal. Nevertheless, I shall stick at it, even unto death." Prophetic words, as St. Gaudens died August 3, 1907, before any of his magnificent coins were produced.
Hering persisted in St. Gaudens absence, with Roosevelt's unwavering assistance, and the sabotaging Barber finally had to admit that they could be struck, even if each coin required 9 blows from the dies to bring up the relief. Barber continued to overrule the project, and shortly after 11,250 of these magnificent coins were struck, a watered down design in much lower relief was employed by the Mint at Barbers insistence. There you have it, one of the most important and beautiful coins ever struck at our mints, and in proof condition. A foremost opportunity for the numismatist.
Estimated Value $15,000 - 20,000.
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| Realized $31,050 |
