***Auction Highlight*** 1907 High Relief, Wire Edge Gold St. Gaudens Double Eagle $20 Graded ms64+ By SEGS. The ...

***Auction Highlight*** 1907 High Relief, Wire Edge Gold St. Gaudens Double Eagle $20 Graded ms64+ By SEGS. The 1907 High Relief Double Eagle is, in my opinion, the most beautiful coin the United States ever issued for normal circulation. Unfortunately, it was not as practical as it was beautiful; the high relief of the standing figure of Liberty and the eagle made the coin impossible to stack properly and thus unpopular and unsuitable for commercial purposes. Minting was also impractical since it reportedly required five blows of the minting press to fully bring up the design making high speed, mass production impossible.Of the 11,250 High Reliefs minted, it is my estimate that 2/3 to 3/4 of this total were the Wire Rim variety since the Flat Rim is at least two to three times as rare as the Wire Rim. The difference between the two varieties was unintentional, i.e. the Mint did not purposely set out to make one variety and then alter the design to make a second variety. (In this regard, the Wire Rim and Flat Rim Double Eagles are not analogous to the Wire Edge and Rolled Edge Eagles which were totally different coins.) The Wire Rim and Flat Rim Double Eagle varieties resulted from the use of different collars. in the case of the Wire Rim variety, the collar was not sufficiently tight and the pressure of the repeated blows forced metal up where the edge of the coin meets the collar to form a very thin wire rim. On most Wire Rims, this raised metal encircles the whole coin, both obverse and reverse, while on the Flat Rim variety, the edge is flat, if not beveled A Key Date's Pick, Bid to Win, Don't let it get Away, you might not find its equal Coin. I give this coin my highest recommendation