2009 Ultra High Relief Double Eagle Gold Coins

The 2009 Ultra High Relief Double Eagle Gold Coins were released in January and after a year of the release, the coin sales were officially ended in December of the same year. The United State Mint’s initial announcement of the release of the coins to the public was met with a huge interest, most of which came from the passionate coin collectors of the United States as the Double Eagle Gold Coins collection has the most followers in the country.

The recreation of Augustus Saint Gaudens’ double eagle coin originally sculpted in year 1907 was redesigned in the form of the upgraded ultra high relief version. The coins were minted on a 1 oz 2-karat gold and were also directly authorized by Hank Paulson, the then United States Secretary of Treasury. Although the 2009 Ultra High Relief Double Eagle Gold Coins’ release were deemed a success, the controversy regarding the inadequate precious metals that were ongoing during that time made the series seemed very likely to run into problems.

The sale of the gold coins started on January 22, 2009, at a starting price of $1,189 per coin. The purchase of the gold coins was limited where each household could only buy one gold coin. With the massive demand of the 2009 Ultra High Relief Double Eagle Gold Coins in the United States’ market, the US Mint managed to sell off more than 40,000 coins in the span of just 5 days after the gold coins were officially put on sale. This proved that the popularity of gold coins collecting never receded even during the global economy crisis.

The gold coins were sculpted with the design of the infamous Liberty holding a torch and an olive branch on each hand in the obverse side of the coin. The numbers representing the year of the minting was changed “MMIX” which is in Roman Numerals. On the other hand, the reverse side of the coin portrayed a flying eagle above a sun and its sunrays. The wording of “In God We Trust” was engraved between the sun and the rays, one of the modifications made on the design.

Before the official release of the 2009 Ultra High Relief Double Eagle Gold Coins were made, the US Mint had stumble on a few complications such as keeping pace with the huge demands from collectors, sales suspensions as well as the allocation programs designed for the available products they produced. The US Mint also stated that they were prioritizing the gold bullion industry rather than the collector’s coins.

When the gold price rose, the US Mint ordering limit changed from one gold coin per household to ten in July and eventually 25 per household before the series were entirely removed from the market in December 2009. For the record, a total of 115,178 2009 Ultra Relief Double Eagle Gold Coins were sold when the total of final sales were revealed by the US Mint.

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