1933-P Saint-Gaudens Double Eagle

Key date

445,500 were struck, and virtually none was ever lawfully released. Executive Order 6102 recalled gold coin in April 1933 before the issue was paid out, and the Mint melted the stock. A small number left the building irregularly; ten recovered in 2004 were held to be government property, and a single example that had been monetised through an export licence is the only one that can be privately owned. It sold in 2002 and again in 2021.

Mintage

Business strikes: 445,500
Mint: Philadelphia (no mintmark)
Mintage rank: 20 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

Among the 24 Philadelphia issues in the series it is the 11th smallest. It is the only issue of the series struck in 1933. Series-wide output fell that year: 445,500 against 1,101,750 in 1932. In 1933 the coin was struck at Philadelphia; Denver and San Francisco struck none.

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

About this figure

The 445,500 figure is what the Mint struck and reported. It is not a guide to what exists: no ordinary example was released, and coins outside the one monetised specimen remain government property subject to seizure.

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 1933-P:

1Pieces sold as 1933 double eagles are replicas or altered coins of other dates. Under the Hobby Protection Act copies must be marked COPY; many are not.
2If you believe you have encountered a genuine example, the Mint and the grading services are the appropriate contacts, not a marketplace listing.

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 1933-Pcertification 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.

Why there is no “find one for sale” link here

Only one 1933 double eagle can lawfully be held in private hands, and it is accounted for. Every other known example is U.S. government property. Coin Curator does not link to a marketplace search for this date, because anything such a search returns is a replica or a coin of another date.

Common questions

How many 1933-P Saint-Gaudens double eagles were minted?

The Philadelphia Mint struck 445,500 1933-P Saint-Gaudens double eagles for circulation. That is the 20th lowest business-strike mintage of the 52 date and mintmark combinations in the series.

Is the 1933-P 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. 445,500 were struck, and virtually none was ever lawfully released. Executive Order 6102 recalled gold coin in April 1933 before the issue was paid out, and the Mint melted the stock. A small number left the building irregularly; ten recovered in 2004 were held to be government property, and a single example that had been monetised through an export licence is the only one that can be privately owned. It sold in 2002 and again in 2021.

Can you buy a 1933-P Saint-Gaudens double eagle?

Why do sources give different mintage figures for the 1933-P?

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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