The E-Sylum:  Volume 8, Number 50, November 27, 2005, Article 17

HOMER SAINT-GAUDENS AND THE CARNEGIE HIGH RELIEF $20

Last week I noted that Saint-Gaudens' son Homer was
associated with the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh, and
recalled a story that Homer had arranged to donate an
extremely high relief double eagle to the Museum's
collection.

Roger Burdette writes: "This is very interesting. In
1908 Augusta Saint-Gaudens was sold one of the two EHR
$20 from the Philadelphia Mint collection at the
direction of President Roosevelt. Augusta later gave
the coin to Homer. According to Dr. Duffy at the SGNHS
the coin was not part of the material transferred to the
National Park Service and no one seemed to know what
happened to Homer's EHR $20. If Homer donated his coin
to the Carnegie Museum and the holdings were later sold,
it may be possible to trace the coin's present owner.
This would be the only EHR example with any direct
connection to the Saint-Gaudens family."

[It would indeed be interesting to verify this tale.
Glenn was a fountain of knowledge about the Carnegie's
collection, but unfortunately he's gone now and I have
no documentation of the story other than my own poor
memory.  I definitely recall Glenn telling me a coin
donated by Homer was misplaced, and I'm very sure it
was a high relief $20 Saint.  Was it an extremely high
relief?  That's the way I recall the story, but I could
be wrong or perhaps Glenn was.  He told the story a
number of times; some of our E-Sylum readers are members
of the Western Pennsylvania Numismatic Society, and may
have their own recollections of the tale.  Even if it
wasn't an EHR, it still makes for an interesting story
- even a plain -ol' high relief is a scarce and valuable
coin to misplace, even temporarily.

I believe there were four sales of the Carnegie numismatic
holdings in New York, London, and Zurich.  A review of
the catalogs would at least confirm whether or not a high
relief $20 was sold by the museum, and if so, the catalog
description might note the provenance.  The only sale I
have handy is the March 24-26 New York sale by Spink &
Son USA, held at the Vista International Hotel at the
World Trade Center.  This was the third sale in the series.
Lot 871 is described as "Double-eagle, 1907, Saint-Gaudens
type, high relief, wire edge. Two edge bruises on reverse
at 4:00; very slight cabinet friction, otherwise as struck
and choice."   It does NOT say the piece is an EHR example,
only "high relief".  -Editor]

Roger adds: "The situation actually extends to the $10
plain edge pattern and several HR $20s once at the Aspet
studio. These and all the gold medals went missing from the
S-G property. I suspect that a careful investigation would
show some interesting gold specimens "appearing" out of
thin air at some auction or other in the 1970s or later.
I doubt that the Carnegie had an EHR $20 - even 50 yr ago
it was too well known to be casually overlooked.

It seems that museum and public collections like to have
a specimen owned by someone famous, but then forget to
properly identify the pieces. The Mitchelson collection
in CT has one HR $20 from Henry Hering but there's no way
to tell which coin it is, or if it was one of those sold
some years ago. A bunch of the ANS coins came from George
Kunz, although Huntington or others may have reimbursed
him for the cost.

Maybe my book on the S-G & Pratt gold designs will pop
some items out of the woodwork."

  Wayne Homren, Editor

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