U.S. Mint Director Ed Moy has announced that the U.S. Mint will issue a recreation of the famous and beloved Ultra-High Relief Saint-Gaudens $20 Double Eagle gold piece in 2009. The special issue coins will be struck in solid 24-karat gold on 27 mm blanks that I would expect to at least a quarter of an inch or more in thickness.When the original Ultra-High Relief Saints were struck in 1907, the Mint had a very difficult time striking them as the coin’s designer, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, intended them to appear. According to Walter Breen’s Complete Encyclopedia of U.S. and Colonial Coins, it took nine striking blows of the coining press, at an immense hydraulic force of 172 tons of pressure, to bring up the detail on the Ultra-High Relief Double Eagles. Between each strike, the coin had to be removed from the press and annealed, a process which softens the coin blank so that it takes the impression from the dies more completely.

Then the blank had to be carefully replaced in the coin press, aligned exactly as before, for the next striking blow. On the final blow, the edge lettering was imparted via a tripartite (three part) collar die. (The collar is the round base that confines the metal of the coin blank during striking so that the coin stays perfectly round and of uniform size. It is sometimes called the “third die,” just as the edge of a coin is often called the “third side” of a coin. On most U.S. coins, the collar die is either plain or reeded.)

Source: coins.about.com

Among the production specifications approved by Secretary Paulson are the new coin’s business-strike finish and a diameter of 27 millimeters. Only 2009-dated coins will be minted. The coins will go on sale in early 2009, although sales may continue into 2010 if inventory exists.