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The first commemorative gold dollars, each dated 1903 (one with the portrait of Jefferson, the other of McKinley) were issued in connection with the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition held in St. Louis. Heavily promoted at $3 each, their sales flopped, and of 125,000 minted of each, just 17,500 were sold. The others went back to the melting pot.
Max Mehl, born in 1884, had started buying and selling coins as a teenager. In 1904, while working as a shoe clerk, he ran his first advertisement in The Numismatist. Soon, he was well known as a professional numismatist. He achieved success on two fronts: In the serious coin trade through his direct and mail-bid sales to numismatists, and in the popular sale of his Star Rare Coin Encyclopedia, offering large sums of money for coins that the public might find in pocket change or in a safe deposit box. Many collections and rarities came his way.
The Denver Mint, under construction since 1904, went into operation in 1906. Silver and gold coins were minted there at first, then cents beginning in 1911, and nickels beginning in 1912.
The MCMVII (1907) high relief $20 gold piece, by Augustus Saint-Gardens, was released into circulation in December and caused great excitement. President Theodore Roosevelt had commissioned America’s best-known sculptor to create these and the related Indian Head $10 gold coins. The results were spectacular, and the coins were highly acclaimed by the public and numismatists alike. There was immediate speculation in the $20 pieces; banks and Treasury-office stocks were depleted, and the price rose to $25, then to $30, within a month or two. A few years later the interest waned, and examples were available for $21. In the late 1920s, they became popular with collectors, and values have gone up ever since.
Indian Head cents were struck in 1908 at the San Francisco Mint, the first branch-mint coinage of a minor (non-precious metal) denomination. Meanwhile, in the gold series, the sand blast Proof finish took the place of the mirror style used in earlier years. These new Proofs were unpopular with collectors, and in the next year satin finish Proofs succeeded them. These also generated complaints, and in 1911 the sand blast Proofs were resumed, to continue in the gold series to 1915.
Also in 1908, the American Numismatic Society moved into a handsome new stone building, largely financed by Archer M. Huntington on Audubon Terrace, Morningside Heights, New York City, where it would remain until moving to 96 Fulton Street in the same city in 2004.
In August 1909 the new Lincoln design for the cent, by Victor D. Brenner, a sculptor and medalist of renown, was released. The first issues had the initials V.D.B. on the reverse, but a controversy arose, and the initials were soon removed. Proofs for collectors were in Matte style, not much different from circulation strikes upon quick glance, and were not popular.
The decade closed with an article in The Numismatist stating that $10,000 each had been paid by a private collector, William H. Woodin, for two different $50 pattern gold coins of 1877. A controversy arose, and Woodin transferred the coins to the Mint Collection in exchange for “several crates” of various older pattern coins.
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