The coin was immediately successful; merchants and banks used it in trade. It was struck until replaced by the Saint-Gaudens double eagle in 1907, and many were melted when President Franklin D. Roosevelt recalled gold coins from the public in 1933. Millions of double eagles were sent overseas in international transactions throughout its run to be melted or placed in bank vaults. Many of the latter have now been repatriated to feed the demand from collectors and those who desire to hold gold.

The obverse depicts a head of Liberty in the Greco-Roman style,[26] facing left, with her hair pulled back—according to numismatists Jeff Garrett and Ron Guth, “attractively”—in a bun. Some of her hair descends the back of her neck. She wears a coronet, inscribed “Liberty”, and is surrounded by thirteen stars, representative of the original states, and the year of issue. The reverse features a heraldic eagle, holding a double ribbon, on which “E Pluribus Unum” is inscribed.The double ribbon is an allusion by Longacre to the denomination of the piece he was designing.The design is a variant on the Great Seal of the United States; the eagle protects a shield, which represents the nation,and holds an olive branch and arrows. Above the bird, Longacre again placed thirteen stars, arranged as a halo, together with an arc of rays.