It was the golden age of coinage in America, a time when some of the beautiful designs were created.
Now, the stories behind those works of numismatic art have been compiled in a new book, Renaissance of American Coinage 1905-1908, by Roger W. Burdette.
In 1905, when dissatisfaction with the nation?s coin designs had reached a watershed, President Theodore Roosevelt persuaded sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens to create new coin designs.
During the next two years, Saint-Gaudens fashioned new designs for the gold $20 and $10 coins before he died in 1907. Those coins are now prized by collectors of U.S. coins.
Burdette takes readers back to the beginning, covering the origin, design and initial striking of these coins, as well as the well-documented feud between Saint-Gaudens and Philadelphia Mint engraver Charles Barber.
Included here are never-before-published letters, drawings and models related to Saint-Gaudens? work. Burdette makes use of extensive authoritative text, illustrations and detailed referencing to primary sources.
David Enders Tripp, author of Illegal Tender: Gold, Greed and the Mystery of the 1933 Double Eagle, wrote the foreward to the book, which should be of special interest to historians, coins collectors and artists.
Available in a 400-page hardcover edition, Renaissance of American Coinage 1905-1908 has a suggested retail price of $64.95. It is available from Seneca Mills Press, LLC, P.O. Box 1423, Great Falls, VA 22066.
