The U.S. Mint began releasing the Ultra-High Relief (UHR)Saint-Gaudens $20 Double Eagle gold coins in early February, 2009. The coins, which were a special project of U.S. Mint Director Ed Moy, are a re-creation of the famous and beloved Ultra-High Relief (UHR)Saint-Gaudens $20 Double Eagles originally struck in 1907.
The special one-year issue coins are struck in solid 24-karat gold on 27 millimeter blanks that are 4 millimeters thick. The Ultra-High Relief coins, which contain one full ounce of .9999 fine gold, will require two strikings of the coin press at a pressure of 65 metric tons to fully bring up the high-relief detail.
The UHR Saints went on sale on January 22, 2009, with the first very small batch of coins shipping to customers on Feb 6. The coin can be purchased through the U.S. Mint Web site. There is no fixed mintage limit; the total produced will be based on actual demand, but as the U.S. Mint is still having difficulty acquiring enough gold to fulfill orders for American Gold Eagles in early 2009, it has warned that orders may take as long as six to nine months to be fulfilled.
The price for the UHR Saint was initially set at $1,189.00, but changed to $1,289.00 after its first week of sales. Due to the Mint's new bullion pricing policy of 2009, the UHR price is subject to revision on a weekly basis in response to the spot price of gold.
UHR Fulfillment Problems
Once the first wave of UHR orders was ready to ship, fulfillment problems arose. The Mint faced challenges getting the companion books on time. The companion book is a small hardcover book that accompanies the Ultra-High Relief coin. The book gives a history of the UHR coin and the Mint's production of it. Unfortunately, a large number of the books were damaged when the Mint's fulfillment center received them, resulting in a confusing mess of multiple shipping delays.
In addition to this, the Mint's Web site security wasn't sufficient enough to prevent a small number of UHR customers from having their orders canceled by malicious third parties. In response, the Mint took its order tracking feature offline during this period, claiming that it was updating the feature. As a result, the Mint's toll-free Customer Service center was overwhelmed by people wanting to track their UHRs and other orders.
Many collectors felt that most of the Mint's UHR fulfillment challenges could have been mitigated if the Mint had provided more information as things were happening. Collector Keith Dagen compiled a timeline of UHR events that documents this unfortunate period.
The Original Ultra-High Relief Saint-Gaudens CoinsWhen the original Ultra-High Relief Saints were struck in 1907, the Mint had a very difficult time striking them as the coin's designer, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, intended them to appear. According to Walter Breen's Complete Encyclopedia of U.S. and Colonial Coins, it took nine striking blows of the coining press, at an immense hydraulic force of 172 tons of pressure, to bring up the detail on the original UHR Double Eagles.
Between each strike, the coin had to be removed from the press and annealed, a process which softens the coin blank so that it takes the impression from the dies more completely. Then the blank had to be carefully replaced in the coin press, aligned exactly as before, for the next striking blow. On the final blow, the edge lettering was imparted via a tripartite (three part) collar die. (The collar is the round base that confines the metal of the coin blank during striking so that the coin stays perfectly round and of uniform size. It is sometimes called the "third die," just as the edge of a coin is often called the "third side" of a coin. On most U.S. coins, the collar die is either plain or reeded.)
Unfortunately, the Ultra-High Relief style of minting proved unworkable for the U.S. Mint back in 1907 because the dies broke very quickly. Experts believe that only 18 to 20 Ultra High Relief specimens were struck on 34 mm Double Eagle planchets (coin blanks) before the dies were ultimately modified to bring the relief down. These coins are considered to be the Mint's "first attempt" to manufacture the Saint-Gaudens Double Eagle design.
The "second attempt" involved experimentally using two 27 mm $10 Gold Eagle planchets that had been melded together. This created a very thick coin, but of a specification that the Mint had not been legislated by Congress to produce. All but two, or perhaps three, were melted down by the Mint following this experimentation. It is this 27 mm, double-thick type of coin that Director Moy intends to produce for collectors in 2009.
Ultra-High Relief Coins - A Mint Director's Dream
Minting these Ultra-High Relief Double Eagles has been a goal of Moy's ever since he became Mint Director in 2006. At just about every U.S. Mint Collector's Forum, public speech, or press interview where the opportunity to discuss his plans for U.S. coinage arises, Moy shares his dream that he will be able to bring American coins back to the glorious days of fine artistic style and high relief strikes. I am sure that just about everyone is as thrilled as I am that Moy is achieving his dream; hopefully when future collectors look back on this time, the coins that are produced will have lived up to the expectations we all share.
The only complaint about these coins that was consistently heard back in 1907, when the Saint-Gaudens Double Eagle made its public debut, was that the motto In God We Trust had been omitted from the design. In its press release about these new Saint-Gaudens ultra-high relief coins, the Mint was careful to state that the Motto would appear on the coins in the 2009 version.
Learn More About the 2009 UHR Saint-Gaudens Coins
The U.S. Mint has set up a really neat online tour for the 2009 Saint-Gaudens coins, based on the actual exhibit booths the Mint created for the 2008 ANA World's Fair of Money in Baltimore. Check out what to look for in the Ultra-High Relief Virtual Tour.
