The $10 Indian Head Eagle minted from 1907 to 1933 is considered to be one of the most beautiful American gold coins produced by the U.S. Mint. Its production came about through the insistence of President Theodore Roosevelt. He did not like the current design on his Inaugural Medal that was designed by Charles E. Barber and George T. Morgan, nor other coins being produced by the mint at the time. The President had some artistic friends who encouraged him to have it re-done. “I think our coinage is artistically of atrocious hideousness,” President Theodore Roosevelt wrote in a note to Secretary of the Treasury, Leslie Mortimer Shaw, on December 27, 1904, and then continues, “Would it be possible, without asking permission of Congress, to employ a man like Saint-Gaudens to give us a coinage that would have some beauty?” President Roosevelt commissioned the sculptor Augustus |

|