When I was a child and first became interested in coins in the early 1970s I used to look through my mother’s pocket change for
obsolete U.S. coins. At that time there were
still lots of old
style Lincoln cents (with the wheat sheath
reverse) and a
fair number of Indian
Head, or “buffalo”
nickel 5c pieces in circulation (though the date was worn off of most of these). There were also occasionally silver coins to be found (the U.S.
had gone over to copper-nickel clad coinage in 1965) and these were fun to
pick out from the rest. My best and oldest find was an 1854 silver seated
liberty 25c piece received from a vending machine in change. Some years later I traded it for a
Roman coin, though I forget now what coin.
In my opinion the early 20th century U.S. coinage was the most attractive the nation has produced. While the
Lincoln cent and buffalo
nickel don’t excite me much the so called “Mercury” dime, standing
Liberty quarter, walking
Liberty half dollar, silver “
Peace” dollar, Indian
head eagle ($10 gold) and the double
eagle ($20 gold; which started this particular
thread) are the most beautiful series of U.S. circulating coinage. The latter two were the
work of the brilliant sculptor
Augustus Saint-Gaudens and the silver pieces were primarily designed by sculptor Adolph
Alexander Weinman. This was the period when true artists were employed to design the coinage. Today we are treated to the jumble of ugly “statehood quarters,” miscellaneous nickels that look like parking tokens, the truly atrocious Presidential dollars series and the worst of all, the Sacagawea “golden dollar,” which is made of a brass
alloy and turns brown after about the third handling. Truly uninspired designs.
Not ALL modern coinage is bad, though. The
head of
Liberty on the 1988 gold $5 Olympic commemorative is, in my opinion, probably the finest rendition of
Liberty ever to grace an American coin; pity almost no one ever saw the design since it did not circulate, of course. This particular coin has the dubious
honor (again my opinion only) of having the very finest
obverse design of any U.S. coin and the very worst
reverse design of any U.S. coin. Two different designers were employed on this project and this was the result. Typically collaborative efforts to design coins result in disaster, I have observed. The very best coin designs have but one artist (emphasis on the word artist) creating the coin. It seems that today the U.S.
Mint (and, it would seem a number of mints of other governments as well) must be under some sort of mandate to give employment to the talent-free.
