Lot 2513
1907 $10 Indian. Wire rim, periods. PCGS graded MS-65. A very choice coin. Only 500 struck. Pleasant, almost cheery golden satin frost display lots of fresh color. One would be hard put to add more about the mint bloom. As for the strike, the coin was struck with technical exactness throughout and is a consistent quality among the surviving 1907 Wire Rim Tens.
Augustus Saint-Gaudens' so-called "Indian" Head Eagles are more properly a creation of his inventive genius having to mold itself to the structural realities of coin design. Breen described it this way: "For the new eagle design, Augustus St. Gaudens [sic] (in consultation with Pres. Theodore Roosevelt) decided to use not a standing figure but a head, feeling that the heroic effect of any standing figure, as chosen for the double eagle, would be lost in smaller diameter. The President disgusted beyond measure at what he called our 'atrociously hideous' coinage, had asked St. Gaudens to design replacements.
"The profile St. Gaudens chose originated in a figure of Nike ('Victory'), part of his Gen. Sherman Monument (1905), ultimately inspired by a Hellenistic Wingless Victory on the temple of Zeus Soter. at Pergamon. At Pres. Roosevelt's insistence, and for no other reason, St. Gaudens gave this head a nationalistic character by the absurd addition of a feathered war bonnet, such as neither Ms. Liberty nor any Native American woman would have ever worn." Pop 42; 18 finer; 15 in 66; 3 in 67. (PCGS # 8850) .
Estimated Value $60,000 - 65,000.
|
| |
| Realized $70,150 |
