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'Other' Saint-Gaudens Easier to Collect
 | By Paul M. Green, Numismatic News
December 01, 2008 |
They may not look like authentic Native Americans, but the fact remains that just like the famous Saint-Gaudens double eagle, the Indian Head $10 gold pieces were also the work of the designing team of America's leading artist Augustus Saint-Gaudens and President of the United States Theodore Roosevelt. That fact alone should make them an interesting collection.
In the case of gold, and especially upper denominations, the number of collectors is usually fairly small simply because of the cost factor. The rising price of bullion hasn't improved the affordability factor, but it has improved the desirability of owning gold in many eyes.
The Indian Head gold eagle series actually has no great rarities like the Saint-Gaudens double eagle, where you have perhaps four or more coins that can potentially command a $1 million or more price at auction. The Indian Head eagle has yet to see its first $1 million date and while that makes it a more affordable set, it also means that they do not get the same publicity as every time a coin breaks $1 million there are usually headlines and stories.
It is also natural at least in the market today, which tends to favor large coins, for the Saint-Gaudens double eagle simply to receive more attention being the largest gold denomination struck for circulation. That said, for a lower investment you can assemble Indian Head eagles and in the process you are getting the other Saint-Gaudens design from the same time period and a set that has a number of interesting coins.
In fact, the Indian Head eagle was very much a part of the same design process that produced the famous Saint-Gaudens double eagle. At the time Saint-Gaudens and President Roosevelt were really mixing and matching designs in an attempt to find a combination both would like for the two top gold denominations of the United States.
The problems of the process are the stuff of legend as Saint-Gaudens and Roosevelt had very real problems with Chief Engraver Charles Barber. In fact, Barber was certainly not happy that Saint-Gaudens and not he was doing the designs work. The real difficulties, however, had little to do with the clash of two admittedly very big egos and that is not counting Roosevelt, but rather the matter of relief of the coin designs.
In some respects it is where Barber gets a bum rap. Augustus Saint-Gaudens, while the most gifted artist of the time, worked primarily with medals and what he and Roosevelt were thinking of in terms of appearance were really medals.
Coins to be usable require a very different relief as the standards are exacting. Medals can be dramatic, but they do not have to stack on bank and store counters. While the design ideas for the $10 and $20 were potentially great art, they were also not likely to work as coins.
Barber on the other hand, was a master at getting coins that worked. He had literally grown up at the Mint where his father had been chief engraver and he had been a couple decades on the job after his father's death. The ancient coins Roosevelt and Saint-Gaudens admired simply would not meet the technical requirements of America in 1907 and that was where the major problem could be found as the two sides fought over the relief of the Saint-Gaudens designs.
While it might have been mix-and-match in terms of what the design themes were, there was no such flexibility when it came to relief if the designs were to work as coins.
The initial Saint-Gaudens designs for the $10 gold piece had periods before and after E PLURIBUS UNUM on the reverse. That design came with either a wire rim, which is more available, or a regular rounded rim.
There were certainly serious attempts to make the type with 500 examples of the wire rim type being produced along with 20,000 of the regular rounded rim. There was also a unique piece with a wire rim with no stars on the edge. The net result of the experiments was basically no coins for circulation as of the 20,000 rounded rim types all but 42 were melted and the same fate befell 70 damaged examples of the wire rim type some time in 1914-1915, leaving roughly 470 examples of the wire rim.
The supply of the wire rim Indian Head eagle today is uncertain. It is believed that potentially 400 exist with prices put at $22,000 in MS-60 and $65,000 in MS-65. The numbers graded seem to suggest the prices might be high as the Professional Coin Grading Service has seen 340 examples of the wire with almost all being Mint State and 52 reaching MS-65 or better.
At the Numismatic Guaranty Corporation they have seen 177, again with most in Mint State and roughly 51 in MS-65 or better. Those are solid supplies especially when you consider the price. Moreover, it is a case where far more have been graded than are thought to exist suggesting that virtually every example known has been graded and some more than once.
In the case of the rounded rim, with all but an estimated 42 pieces melted, it is much tougher at $66,500 in MS-60 and $250,000 in MS-65. The general belief is that perhaps half of the 42 still exist although PCGS has already graded 48 while NGC has seen 27. Of the total, 32 at PCGS graded at least MS-65 while another 18 at NGC were MS-65 or better. That makes 50 which have at least been called MS-65 and that is supposed to be the entire number known, so we can safely conclude that at least some were submitted more than once.
The prices of both the wire and regular rounded rim remain high as these were the coins that Saint-Gaudens and Roosevelt wanted to make, giving them a special attraction in the minds of collectors. That means demand at any price remains high.
While they were trying to work out the matter of periods or no periods and what type of rim to use, Augustus Saint-Gaudens passed away, leaving the rest of his work in the hands of his assistant, Henry Hering.
The periods were removed and a 1907 mintage was begun with a total of 239,406 being produced along with another 33,500 the following year without the motto IN GOD WE TRUST on it.
It was not a mistake to omit the motto. It was Teddy Roosevelt who had decided from his reading of the Scriptures that God should not be associated with coins, so he kept the motto off. The Congress, however, read the Scriptures a different way and ordered it back, making the no motto examples of the first couple years a different type.
The 1907 without the motto is the more available of the no motto type at $580 in VF-20, $775 in MS-60 and $11,450 in MS-65 while the significantly lower mintage no motto 1908 is roughly the same price in VF-20, but $720 in MS-60 and $14,500 in MS-65.
The grading services support the price differences, with PCGS showing about 190 examples of the 1907 in MS-65 or better as opposed to just 25 of the 1908 while NGC reports 390 MS-65 or better examples of the 1907, but just 32 of the 1908.
With the addition of the motto, the design was fixed and the Philadelphia 1909 mintage would be 184,089. For Philadelphia, that was a lower total, but the facility was busy that year with the production of the first Lincoln cent and the problems involved with that new design.
Even with the lower mintage, the 1909 does not command a premium price in circulated grades. It is hardly better in MS-60 at $700, which puts it among the most common pieces. But in MS-65 it is $12,750, which is almost double the cost of an available date. This premium is supported by the grading services with PCGS reporting 24 examples in MS-65 or better while NGC adds an additional 28 examples.
The lack of premium in circulated grades for the 1909 turns out to be not that unusual for Philadelphia Indian Head eagles being reviewed here. It is largely because of a lack of demand as there are relatively few collectors working on Indian Head eagle sets in circulated grades. As a result, even if the supplies are different, they are adequate to meet the low demand that keeps the prices of virtually all dates very similar.
With additional demand, the situation could change, but at least currently that has not happened.
Supplies of Indian Head gold eagles are an interesting matter as the Indian Head gold eagle is actually a much tougher coin than many realize. After all, large numbers of what were sometimes not large mintages were destroyed in the melting that came about from the Gold Recall Order of 1933.
In addition to the smaller supplies than might be expected in top grades, the Indian Head gold eagle is a flawed design as the cheek was especially prone to friction, picking up small marks simply from moving around in bags or routine stacking. That makes it extremely hard to find top quality examples today as they need to not only be Mint State, but also to be coins that managed to exist for decades without rubbing against others.
The troubles with the design make it easier to understand why a number of Philadelphia dates while seeming available in even low Mint State grades turn out to be costly and very elusive in the highest grades. The 1910, for example, had a mintage of 318,704, which should make it available and it is until you get to MS-65 where it is $8,950, which is nearly $1,500 more than the most available dates and the reason is seen in grading service totals where PCGS reports 52 in MS-65 or better while NGC has seen about 130.
In the case of the 1911, there is a higher mintage than the 1910 at 505,595, yet the two are priced basically the same in lower grades and even in MS-65, but that is because the numbers seen at grading services are similar, with PCGS reporting 74 and NGC about 170 in MS-65 or better, which are more than enough to meet the current demand. So even if the totals are not the same as the 1910, the fact is both dates have enough examples at least through MS-65 to meet the current demand.
The factors that had an impact on today's supplies are important to understand. It is also important to understand that those factors did not have an even impact based on mintages. The first, for example, was the melting produced by the Gold Recall Order of 1933. That melting claimed well over 30 percent of all the gold eagles ever minted. The coins melted, however, were not melted according to their mintages. It was simply luck or lack thereof as if a date was found in large numbers in the vaults or turned in by the public in large numbers it suffered heavy losses.
On the other side of the scale was the fact that some dates or at least some numbers of some dates might very well have been out of the country at the time of the recall. That was because large numbers of U.S. gold coins had been exported over the years in international dealings.
Those coins would simply sit in the vault in a bank in France or Switzerland or another country. Since they were not in the United States they were not melted. They also did not circulate.
When American dealers began seeking and buying the vast hoards in other nations in the 1950s there were many surprises. The dates were not exported in numbers reflecting their mintages, so there could be better dates as well as common dates. In some cases, the coins had never circulated and that was true of the time when Indian Head eagles were produced as they usually had seen no circulation, but because the design did not travel well, it meant that most examples were in lower Mint State grades.
Just as in the melting we are also without any real information as to what dates were found and purchased from European banks and which dates were not. The best way to determine whether a date was found in numbers or not is simply to look at the prices and check grading service totals.
It must be remembered even as the last Indian Head gold eagle was produced there were very few gold eagle collectors in the United States. A few people sensing tough economic times assembled small gold coin hoards prior to 1933 and some of those hoards included Indian Head gold eagles, but the total numbers are small.
The bulk of the Mint State gold eagles seen today especially in MS-63 or lower trace their past back to vaults in other countries. If you see large numbers at the grading services in lower Mint State grades, you almost certainly have a date that was found in a foreign bank vault.
The situation leaves us with supplies that cannot be expected to reflect the mintages. That is seen in the Philadelphia dates form 1912-1915. All are available in circulated and lower Mint State grades, but in MS-65 supplies become very uncertain.
The 1912 with a mintage of 405,083 is available in MS-60, but goes to $9,650 in MS-65 where PCGS reports just 24 pieces while NGC reports 53.
The 1913 would seemingly be close to the 1912 with a similar mintage of 442,071 and it, too, is available in MS-60, but more available than the 1912 in MS-65 where it lists for $8,800. That is supported by a PCGS total in MS-65 or better of 44 and an NGC total of 76.
In the case of the 1914 you have a lower 151,000 mintage yet about the same MS-60 price as the 1912 and 1913 but a higher MS-65 listing of $9,850, with a PCGS total of 34, while the NGC total is 41.
The 1915, while not low mintage, is slightly lower than the 1912 and 1913 at 351,075 yet it is much higher than the 1914 mintage. You can hardly tell the 1914 and 1915 apart in uncirculated prices. The 1915 is $50 less in MS-60 at $2,350 and an identical $9,850 in MS-65.
Demand for gold eagles back at the time was every bit as uncertain as supplies of those coins today. World War I economic conditions interrupted production. After 1915, the next Indian Head gold eagle mintage at Philadelphia would not take place until 1926. That reflected the fact that in the East gold coins were used less than in California where San Francisco had mintages in 1916 and 1920.
When Philadelphia returned to production, the 1926 mintage was 1,014,000, which may very well have been a total designed to provide for adequate supplies for years. Certainly with the large mintage, the 1926 is available today with even an MS-65 at $7,450.
The enormous 1932 mintage of 4,463,000 is actually easier to explain. There was a run on gold at the time as some panicked Americans turned their Gold Certificates and other notes into gold coins fearing the worst after the stock market crashed.
They were actually fairly astute as things were going to get very bad, but with the large mintage to meet that demand the 1932 is relatively available today. Certainly large numbers were melted, but the 1932 was the likely date to end up in the many small hoards of the period.
The supply of the 1932 today is better than virtually any other date as is seen by the low $695 MS-60 price with a $7,500 MS-65. In MS-65 or better PCGS reports over 650 examples, while the NGC total is over 1,650, making the 1932 easily the most available MS-65 Indian Head gold eagle.
The final Indian Head gold eagle, the 1933, was the opposite extreme. The 1933 had a listed mintage of 312,500, but we know that very few got out with the rest being in the vaults when the Gold Recall Order of 1933 was issued. That meant virtually the entire mintage was destroyed. In the case of the Indian Head 1933 eagle, however, unlike the Saint-Gaudens double eagle, the government has never contested the fact that some did actually get released, making them legal to own.
Interestingly, however, there has basically never been any indication that the 1933 eagle actually saw much circulation. It is priced at $110,000 in VF-20, but the best guess is no one ever has or ever will see a VF-20. They did not circulate long enough to even get close to VF-20.
The MS-60 price of $185,000 is actually about as low as they go in terms of grade with an MS-65 currently listed at $650,000. At PCGS the lowest example ever graded out of 23 seen was an MS-62, with the MS-65 or better total at six. At NGC they have graded 10 examples with none below MS-63.
That combined total of 33 pieces speaks for itself as the 1933 is clearly a significant rarity and by far the key date to an Indian Head gold eagle collection. Of course even at its high prices, it is still far less than the one legal 1933 Saint-Gaudens double eagle, so if you want a 1933 U.S. gold coin, the Indian Head gold eagle is your best option.
While you may not be able to afford the 1933, the fact is that Indian Head gold eagles are a possible collection for many. They are a fascinating group and if you want a Saint-Gaudens gold coin collection, they are the perfect choice.
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