1908-S With Motto Saint-Gaudens Double Eagle

Key date

The lowest mintage of any issued Saint-Gaudens double eagle other than the 1907 High Relief. San Francisco struck just 22,000 before turning to other work, and the coins circulated.

Mintage

Business strikes: 22,000
Mint: San Francisco (S)
Mintage rank: 2 of 52

Rank 1 is the lowest business-strike mintage in the series. Mintage and survival diverge more sharply in this series than anywhere else on the site. Double eagles were held as reserves rather than spent, so large numbers never entered circulation at all, and Executive Order 6102 recalled gold coin in 1933. The Treasury melting that followed destroyed most of what it held, and the issues of the late 1920s and early 1930s were hit hardest because they had barely left the vaults. The 1927-D is the extreme case: 180,000 struck, and a handful known today. Read the mintage here as what was made, never as what is available.

Reading the figure

It is the smallest of the 15 San Francisco issues in the series. Of the 5,463,059 struck across all mints in 1908, this issue accounts for under 1%. Philadelphia struck more than a hundred times as many that year. The 1908 split ran Philadelphia 4,271,551, Denver 663,750, Denver 349,500, Philadelphia 156,258 and San Francisco 22,000. The series median is 567,500, so fewer than half as many of these were struck as a typical date. Series-wide output rose sharply that year: 5,463,059 against 374,034 in 1907. It is the first year San Francisco struck the design.

Every sentence above is computed from the mintage table on this page, not asserted separately.

Scarcity tier

Key date

Assigned from reported mintage alone: under 750,000 is a key date, under 2,500,000 is a semi-key.

This is a reproducible label derived from the mintage column, not a market valuation and not a Coin Curator price opinion. The same thresholds apply to every series on this site. Several dates are far harder or far easier to obtain than their mintage implies; where that is true, it is stated above.

Mintage tells you very little in this series. Mintage and survival diverge more sharply in this series than anywhere else on the site. Read the full note on the series page.

What to check before buying

Specific to the 1908-S With Motto:

1The lowest-mintage regular issue of the series attracts counterfeits, including added or altered mintmarks on commoner 1908 coins. Verify the certification record.

And for any certified coin

Verify the certification number on the grading service’s own lookup rather than from a photograph of the label, match the listing images to the certification record including grade and any variety attribution, look for cleaning, compare the mintmark against published photographs of the genuine issue, and read the return policy before buying. The grading guide covers each of these in full.

Coin Curator does not grade, authenticate, or appraise coins, and publishes no price or population data. These are verification steps, not a valuation.

Verify a certification number

Look a 1908-S With Mottocertification number up on the service’s own site. A photograph of a label proves nothing.

PCGS cert lookup NGC cert lookup ANACS cert lookup

Each service publishes its own guarantee with conditions and exclusions. Compare PCGS, NGC and ANACS.

Find a 1908-S With Motto for sale

Opens an eBay search for this exact date and mint. Coin Curator does not list inventory, hold stock, or quote prices; verify each listing, seller, and return policy directly.

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Common questions

How many 1908-S With Motto Saint-Gaudens double eagles were minted?

The San Francisco Mint struck 22,000 1908-S With Motto Saint-Gaudens double eagles for circulation. That is the 2nd lowest business-strike mintage of the 52 date and mintmark combinations in the series.

Is the 1908-S With Motto Saint-Gaudens double eagle a key date?

Coin Curator labels it a key date, assigned from reported mintage alone: under 750,000 struck is a key date and under 2,500,000 is a semi-key. The same thresholds are used for every series on this site, so the tiers are comparable between them. That label describes production, not market value or how hard the coin is to find today. The lowest mintage of any issued Saint-Gaudens double eagle other than the 1907 High Relief. San Francisco struck just 22,000 before turning to other work, and the coins circulated.

What should I check before buying a 1908-S With Motto Saint-Gaudens double eagle?

Verify the certification number on the grading service's own lookup page, match the listing photographs to the certification record, check for cleaning, and compare the mintmark shape and position against published photographs of the genuine issue. The lowest-mintage regular issue of the series attracts counterfeits, including added or altered mintmarks on commoner 1908 coins. Verify the certification record.

Guides for this coin

All guides →

Vintage Guide

Saint-Gaudens Double Eagle: A Collector’s Guide

The most beautiful US coin and one of the most collectible pre-1933 golds. The major types (Ultra High Relief, High Relief, No Motto, With Motto), the famous keys, and how to buy common dates well.

1 min read Market Context

Pre-1933 Gold Coin Collecting and Market Context

Research Saint-Gaudens, Liberty Head, and Indian Head gold by exact type, date, grade, surfaces, current metal value, and coin-specific evidence.

1 min read Vintage Guide

The 1933 Double Eagle: A Provenance Lesson

The 1933 Double Eagle combines contested ownership, government litigation, exceptional provenance, and a documented 2021 auction record.

1 min read Education

What Makes a Coin a “Key Date”, and Why It Drives Value

Coins from the same series can differ sharply in availability and demand. Learn how date, mintmark, variety, grade, and surfaces shape key-date research.

1 min read

Mintage sources

Mintage figures are U.S. Mint production records, cross-checked against the published tables below on 2026-08-02. Where those tables disagree, the disagreement is disclosed on the affected page rather than resolved silently.

CoinMintages.com, Saint-Gaudens double eagle mintages — Reports the 1907 relief types and the 1908 motto types separately, with proofs listed apart from business strikes.
Wikipedia, "Saint-Gaudens double eagle" — Mintage table citing Yeoman and Bowers, and the source for the Ultra High Relief being an experimental piece rather than an issue.
NGC and dealer references, 1909 and 1910-S — Consulted to break the two disagreements between the tables above.

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