Like many later date Saint-Gaudens double eagles, the 1926-D saw little, if any, actual circulation and its fairly generous mintage of 481,000 pieces can falsely give the impression of a common issue. Instead, these coins were predominantly stockpiled in Treasury vaults until scarcely 10 years later, when almost the entire mintage ended up in the melting pot. Most of the few that survived are in the lowest Mint State grades, with Gem examples extremely rare. Even at the Choice Mint State level the 1926-D can be very challenging.

The example to the left was sold by Stack's Bowers Galleries in the January 2008 Americana Auction, where it realized $51,750.