Saint-Gaudens died on August 3, 1907, and Roosevelt insisted that the new eagle be finished and struck that month. The coin as sculpted by Saint-Gaudens was too high in relief for the Mint to strike readily, and it took months to modify the design so that the coin could be struck by one blow of the Mint's presses. For the reverse of the $10 coin, the President decided on a design featuring a standing bald eagle that had been developed for the Saint-Gaudens double eagle $20 coin, while the obverse features a left-facing bust of Liberty wearing an Indian feather headdress.
Roosevelt and Saint-Gaudens at first considered a uniform design for the four denominations of coins which were struck in gold, but in 1907 Roosevelt decided to use a model for the obverse of the eagle that the sculptor had meant to use for the cent. He was suffering from cancer and did not survive to see the coins released.īeginning in 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt proposed new, more artistic designs on US coins, prompting the Mint to hire Saint-Gaudens to create them. The obverse and reverse were designed by sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, originally commissioned for use on other denominations. The Indian Head eagle is a $10 gold piece or eagle that was struck by the United States Mint continuously from 1907 until 1916, and then irregularly until 1933.
