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The Liberty Head double eagle or Coronet double eagle is an American twenty-dollar gold piece struck as a pattern coin in 1849, and for commerce from 1850 to 1907. It was designed by Mint of the United States Chief Engraver James B. Longacre. The largest denomination of United States coin authorized by the Mint Act of 1792 was the eagle, or ten-dollar piece. The large amount of bullion being brought east after the discovery of gold in California in the 1840s caused Congress to consider new denominations of gold coinage. The gold dollar and double eagle were the result. After considerable infighting at the Philadelphia Mint, Chief Engraver James B. Longacre designed the double eagle, and it began to be issued for commerce in 1850. Only one 1849 double eagle is known to survive; it rests in the National Numismatic Collection at the Smithsonian. The coin was immediately successful; merchants and banks used it in trade. It was struck until replaced by the Saint-Gaudens double eagle in 1907, and many were melted when President Franklin D. Roosevelt recalled gold coins from the public in 1933. Millions of double eagles were sent overseas in international transactions throughout its run to be melted or placed in bank vaults. Many of the latter have now been repatriated to feed the demand from collectors and those who desire to hold gold. == Inception == Under the Mint Act of 1792, the largest-denomination coin was the gold eagle, or ten-dollar piece. Also struck were a half eagle ($5) and quarter eagle ($2.50). Bullion flowed out of the United States for economic reasons for much of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The eagle's size made it convenient for use in international transactions, and, faced with the likelihood that most being struck were exported, the Director of the Mint Elias Boudinot ended its production in 1804. In 1838, coinage resumed after Congress revised the weight and fineness of American gold coins. The new eagle was struck to a design by Christian Gobrecht, who was one of the Mint's engravers. In 1836, the ''Public Ledger'', a Philadelphia newspaper, proposed the issuance of both a gold dollar and a twenty-dollar piece; they wrote of the latter, "Twenty (dollars ) are an encumbrance in a pocket ... if we are to have larger coins, let them be of gold. Along with the eagle, which has the size of the half dollar, we would recommend the double eagle, which (be ) of the size of our silver dollar, () would contain the value of twenty." Others perceived a need for a large U.S. gold coin to be used in international transactions—American merchants sometimes used high-denomination Latin American gold coins for that purpose. No proposal for a gold twenty-dollar piece was considered until after the California Gold Rush, beginning in 1848, greatly increased the amount of the metal available in the United States. The increase in the supply of gold caused silver coins to be worth more than their face value, and they were heavily exported, generating new support for a gold dollar to take their place in commerce. The massive quantity of gold made a larger denomination desirable as well, to more efficiently convert gold to coins. In January 1849, North Carolina Congressman James Iver McKay amended his previously introduced legislation for a gold dollar to provide for a double eagle as well. He wrote to Mint Director Robert M. Patterson, who responded, "there can be no other objection to the Double eagle except that it is not needed. It will be a handsome coin, between the half dollar and dollar in size." Concerned about likely Whig opposition to the coinage bill, McKay got his fellow Democrat, New Hampshire Senator Charles Atherton, to introduce the bill in the Senate on February 1, 1849—Atherton was chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. McKay introduced a version of the bill into the House on February 20; debate began the same day. The dollar was attacked on ground it would be too small; the double eagle on the claim that it would be heavily abraded in circulation, and would become lightweight. McKay did not respond substantively, but stated that if no one wanted these denominations, they would be unasked-for at the Mint, and would not be coined. Pennsylvania Representative Joseph Ingersoll, a Whig, spoke against the bill, noting that Patterson opposed the new denominations. Ingersoll stated that a twenty-dollar piece would be "doubled into a ponderous and unparalleled size". Nevertheless, the bill providing for the issuance of the gold dollar and double eagle passed both houses by large margins, and was signed into law by President James K. Polk on March 3, 1849. According to numismatist David Lange, "the double eagle was a banker's coin intended to simplify transfers of large sums between financial institutions and between nations". 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Liberty Head double eagle」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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