A 1907 ultra high relief $20 Double Eagle with a rare font is coming to auction next month.
The 1907 $20 gold coins were the first designed by Irish-born sculptor August Saint-Gaudens.
 One of just two 1907 $20 ultra high reliefs to feature sans serif writing on the edge |
Yet the attempts to produce an ultra high relief coin in the Greek fashion were met with difficulty, as Saint-Gaudens had wryly predicted.
"I think it would be best to know at once if there are not some inflexible modern requirements that necessitate extreme flatness," he had said in a letter to the US treasury secretary Leslie Mortier Shaw a year earlier.
The problems in producing the ultra high relief coins resulted in just 22-24 examples being struck.
The lot is one of just two of those examples that contain the sans serif font on the edge of the coin - an early feature that would not be continued in later strikes.
The PR58 rated coin is currently selling for $160,000 in online bidding ahead of its August 3 sale at Heritage Auctions' US Signature Coins auction, taking place between August 2-5 in Philadelphia.
It will be fascinating to see how it compares with another 1907 ultra high relief $20 Double Eagle, which sold for $2.8m last month.
A high relief version of the 1907 coin is currently second in the bidding. The MS65 rated coin is selling for $22,000. It will also go under the hammer on August 3.
We will bring you full results of the sale next month.
You can view Paul Fraser Collectibles' superb collection of investment-grade coins here.
