|
| The Renaissance of United States Coinage: 1907-21Indians Come, Indians Go - Part IIby Tolling Jennings
Indians Come, Indians Go.
"The evils men do live on after them, the good dies with them". Fortunately, it was not so with Teddy Roosevelt. He didn't make it to the next round, but his coin reformation program did. The redesign of the $20.00 and $10.00 gold coins was met with such favourable response that the Mint continued with the project. This included the use of artists from outside the Mint.
Enter sculptor/engraver Victor David Brenner, a young Lithuanian immigrant who landed a job to redesign the lowly one-cent coin. No one could have guessed that this design would become the most widely reproduced image in the world and the most collected coin of the 20th century.
This stunning redesign caused another uproar in the United States . The coin replaced the popular Indian Head one-cent (1857-1909) designed by James B. Longacre. Brenner's was the first one-cent coin to carry the motto "In God We Trust" under the legislation of May 28, 1908 . Up to this time, the director of the Treasury had the option (under the law of March 3, 1865 ) to include the motto. The challenge to the "mottoless" $20.00 and $10.00 gold coins would not be repeated. The motto is under fire again as a law suit is in the works to remove it from U.S. coinage and the statement "Under God" from the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance.
Left: Victor D. Brenner at work in his studio, circa 1908. Right: Brenner's Lincoln Plaque of 1907 (actual size: 241 x 181mm) that served as the inspiration for the cent.
Far more impact would come from the image of Abraham Lincoln adapted from a popular medal of Brenner's creation. It might be of interest to put the time into a bit of perspective. At the time of the new coin's issue (1909) there were many veterans from both sides still alive who could remember the American Civil War - or the War Between the States, if you prefer. The time span is about the same as that from the Viet Nam Police Action (or War) to our own time. The assassination of Pres. Lincoln had as profound an effect on his generation as that of Pres. Kennedy had on his peers a hundred years later. There were as many who favoured both new designs as those who opposed them. The soldiers of the South took exception to having Lincoln 's image on a coin, perceiving it as one more insult to their humiliating defeat. The Kennedy half-dollar had many detractors, most of them Republicans. There was also the problem of the law requiring 25 years to pass before a person's image could appear on a U.S. coin in the case of the Kennedy Half.
The transition from the Indian Head Cent to the Lincoln Head Cent created the two lowest mintage cents of the entire one-cent coin series! The 1909-S Indian Head cent is the lowest mintage of all small cents, with only 309,000 sought-after coins struck early in the year before being replaced by the second lowest-minted coin, the 1909-S VDB Lincoln cent with a mintage of 484,000. The 1909-S VDB Lincoln cent would become the most collected and valuable of the entire regular issue of Lincoln cents.
The uproar that arose was not about the omission of words as happened with the gold coins of St. Gaudens, but was centered around the addition of three little letters: V.D.B. These initials appear at the bottom of the reverse of the coin just below the wheat wreath.
Left and Center: Obverse and Reverse of the 1909-S VDB cent, the first year of the Lincoln cent issue. Right: Gasparro's Lincoln Memorial reverse used in and after 1959. (Ills ca. 2x)
Brenner, as so many other coin designers in America and around the world, had included his initials on the coin. There doesn't seem to be any real basis for the opposition to the addition of the designer's initials to his coin except that they were a bit large for the size of the coin. The initials were removed from the reverse of the coin and would not reappear until 1918, when they would be reinstated on the obverse at the truncation of the bust. This option will not be available to the designers of the "50 States Quarters" who have been denied the addition of their initials to their coins.
There was a further concern about the use of the image of a real person on a circulating coin. Up until this coin, only representations of " Liberty " appeared on the obverse of U.S. coins. Many felt that the use of an actual person's image on a coin moved toward the monarchal model and was an affront to the original intent of the founding fathers who wished to move away from such a model.
This modern, striking design commemorating Lincoln 's 100th birthday would be the forerunner of the later so-called "Dead Presidents" series of coins.
The Lincoln Cent has gone through several metal compositions in its almost 100 years. The coin of today is a far cry from that of 1909. The cent of 1909 weighed 3.11 grams and was .950 copper, .050 tin and zinc. The composition changed to a 2.70-gram zinc-plated steel coin for 1943, and returned to a copper and zinc coin in 1944. Off-metal coins of both years are known and bring high premiums.
The composition was again changed to .950 copper and .050 tin with the redesign of the reverse by Frank Gasparro in 1959. The new design shows the Lincoln Memorial complete with the image of A. Lincoln sitting in a throne with amazing detail for an image so small. This alloy only lasted four years before it was returned to the original bronze alloy. By 1982 the rise in the cost of base and precious metals (rivaled only by the rise we are presently experiencing) forced the removal of all but a token amount of copper from the coin. The coin is now composed of 97.5% zinc and 2.5% copper with a weight of 2.5 grams.
The relevance of the cent has been challenged in recent years in both the U.S. and Canada . The fate of the one-cent coin will be decided in both countries in the near future. The 200th anniversary of Lincoln 's birth occasions new designs for the one cent. There will be four new designs commemorating various aspects of Lincoln 's life. A bronze collector coin is also being offered. This is the same format used for the "Corp of Discovery 5-Cent Program". The coins will be released two-a-year in 2009 and 2010 with a new overall design in 2010. How long the cent will survive in this time of high inflation and runaway metal costs is anyone's guess. It would not be the first coin to go the way of the dodo by being forced out of existence through inflation.
|
OctoberRenaissance of U.S. Coinage, 1907-21. Part 2 The Back Design of the 1954 $2 Note
|
|---|
