page_title: Indian Head gold pieces
section_title: Innovation
hierarchical_section_title: Indian Head gold pieces / Innovation
caption_attribution_description: English: 1907 G$10 Indian Head (no motto) Gold (fineness 0.9000), 27mm, 16.718g, designed by Augustus Saint-Gaudens JN2015-6758-59
context_page_description: The Indian Head gold pieces or Pratt-Bigelow gold coins were two separate coin series, identical in design, struck by the United States Mint: a two-and-a-half-dollar piece, or quarter eagle, and a five-dollar coin, or half eagle. The quarter eagle was struck from 1908 to 1915 and from 1925–1929. The half eagle was struck from 1908 to 1916, and in 1929. The pieces remain the only US circulating coins with recessed designs. These coins were the last of their denominations to be struck for circulation, ending series that began in the 1790s.
  President Theodore Roosevelt, from 1904, vigorously advocated new designs for United States coins, and had the Mint engage his friend, the sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, to design five coins that could be changed without congressional authorization. Before his death in August 1907, Saint-Gaudens completed designs for the eagle and double eagle, although both required subsequent work to make them fully suitable for coining.
  With the eagle and double eagle released into circulation by the end of 1907, the Mint turned its attention to the half eagle and quarter eagle, originally planning to duplicate the double eagle's design.
context_section_description: The President's friend, Dr. William Sturgis Bigelow, had been in Japan for most of 1907; on his return to his Boston home he heard about the Saint-Gaudens coinage from Senator Henry Cabot Lodge.  Bigelow was one of a number of Roosevelt's friends given early specimens of the double eagle.  He wrote to the President on January 8, 1908, praising the Saint-Gaudens coins and stating that he was working with a Boston sculptor, Bela Pratt, on an idea that would allow coins to be struck in high relief.  Pieces struck in this manner would have the designs protected from wear and be able to stack easily (both problems with high relief coins).  The President responded to express his interest on January 10, and Pratt was soon busy on a model for him to examine.  Roosevelt did not then tell the Mint of the new proposal.
  The newly released eagle and double eagle had provoked considerable controversy over their omission of the motto "In God We Trust", and with Congress already preparing to require the motto's use, Leach ordered work suspended on the half and quarter eagle on January 18.  The Mint had not expected to have to put "In God We Trust" on small coins of the double eagle design, on which it was already having trouble finding space for the other required legends.  On the assumption the bill would succeed, Leach had Barber continue with his work, and at least one pattern half eagle was struck on February 26 for Leach to show the President.
  Pratt completed plaster models for the coin, using the obverse design for the ten-dollar piece as the basis, but using a photograph of an unknown, male Indian from his photo collection rather than Saint-Gaudens' female Liberty.  He displayed one model in his Connecticut studio, and sent another to Bigelow for presentation to the President the next time the two friends met.  Roosevelt and Bigelow had lunch with Mint Director Leach on April 3.  The President was enthusiastic about the proposed coin.  Leach recalled in his memoirs:
  Originally it was the intention to give the $5 and $2.50 pieces the same design as that used on the double eagle or $20 piece, but before final action to that end was taken President Roosevelt invited me to lunch with him at the White House. His purpose was to have me meet Doctor William Sturgis Bigelow of Boston, a lover of art and friend of the President, who was showing great interest in the undertaking for improving the appearance of American coins, and who had a new design for the smaller gold coins. It was his idea that the commercial needs of the country required coins that would "stack" evenly, and that the preservation of as much as possible of the flat plane of the piece was desirable. A coin, therefore, with the lines of the design, figures, and letters depressed or incused, instead of being raised or in relief, would meet the wishes of the bankers and business men, and at the same time introduce a novelty in coinage that was artistic as well as adaptable to the needs of business.
  As a result of the White House lunch meeting, Leach agreed to abandon the idea that the double eagle design be used for the small gold pieces, and to cooperate with Bigelow and Pratt in the making of the new coins.  Leach even undertook to reimburse Pratt's fee of $300 to Bigelow from government funds.  The President wanted to see Saint-Gaudens' standing eagle from the ten-dollar piece adapted in a recessed surface for the smaller pieces, and, if it did not constitute a change of design, used on the ten-dollar piece as well (a project that did not go beyond the talking stage).  Bigelow wrote to Pratt on May 1 after conferring with Leach, stating that the Mint Director would likely not object if Pratt were to improve Saint-Gaudens' standing eagle, but "I would not, if I were you, get too far from the original, as the President likes it.  Perhaps you can make him like it better."
  Dies had been cut for the Saint-Gaudens half eagle, causing Leach to ask for a legal opinion on whether that constituted a change of design—if it did, no further change could be made for 25 years without an
caption: The Indian Head eagle, designed by Saint-Gaudens, was the basis for the designs for the smaller gold pieces.
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