1908-D No Motto

One of only three No Motto issues in the entire Indian Head Eagle series, the 1908-D occupies a narrow sub-type window that closed permanently when President Roosevelt signed the Act of May 18, 1908, restoring IN GOD WE TRUST to the eagle and double eagle. Striking began in January 1908 and ran until the legislative deadline forced an interruption to retool the reverse master for the motto. A reported 210,000 pieces left the Denver coining presses in those four months, the largest of the three No Motto deliveries and considerably more available than the 33,500-coin 1908 Philadelphia issue, though smaller than the 239,406 figure logged for the 1907 No Periods. The issue also marks Denver's first Indian Eagle production, the facility having opened gold operations in 1906 but waiting until 1908 to coin the new tens.

The obverse continues Saint-Gaudens' Liberty in a Native American war bonnet, with thirteen stars circling the periphery and the date in field. The reverse standing eagle on a fasces shows E PLURIBUS UNUM but no IN GOD WE TRUST, the motto Roosevelt had ordered removed on religious grounds and that Congress moved swiftly to reinstate. The mintmark sits low on the reverse, to the left of the fasces. David Akers documented the issue's strike profile bluntly: the obverse arrives flatly struck and lackluster on the great majority of survivors, with a small population of well-detailed coins from the Kruthoffer Collection and a few peers as the conspicuous exceptions. Authentication still keys on the starred edge, the forty-six raised stars rendering most cast counterfeits trivial to reject. PCGS reports five coins at MS66 with none finer; NGC tops at MS67 with three pieces.

Market behavior tracks the strike penalty. Coins through AU58 trade as accessible No Motto sub-type representatives at modest premiums to bullion, while MS62 through MS64 occupy a populated middle band where eye appeal and originality determine premium. The Gem threshold breaks the curve sharply: a PCGS MS66 from the Jim O'Neal Collection of Saint-Gaudens Eagles realized $149,500 at Heritage on January 8, 2009, and a Stack's Bowers PCGS MS66 brought $82,250 in August 2013. Total surviving population is estimated near 3,000 coins, leaving the issue genuinely scarce only at the Gem level despite a six-figure mintage. For broader context, see the Indian Head Eagle series history.