I was passing through Wikipedia today and noticed that the featured article is heraldic in nature. The Shield Nickel was minted in the 19th century and, not surprisingly, has the nation’s coat of arms on its obverse.
Seems like coat of arms appear from time to time in our currency, but never seems to last. We’ll see how long the current penny design will last .
James Longacre was not the most talented designer at the US Mint. Thankfully others, namely Charles Barber and George Morgan were given the chance to prove their talents later in the 19th century.
The shield design was used on both the five cent nickel and the two cent bronze coins in the last years of the US Civil War as a way to alleviate the shortage of small change caused by people hoarding silver coinage during the political and economic uncertainty of the times, as many people had lost faith in the US currency since the issuance of fractional notes (1862-1875) in the denominations of 3, 5, 10, 25 & 50 cents. At the time of the five cent nickel’s introduction, the silver half dime bearing the Seated Liberty was still being coined (though in limited numbers). With the Mint not knowing how the new metal and most likely temporary coin might be accepted it was thought better not to place Lady Liberty on the coin.
The major coins—silver quarter, half dollar, and dollar, and gold half eagle ($5), eagle ($10), and double eagle ($20) were for many years required by law to have Liberty on the obverse and an eagle on the reverse. For the silver dollar and the gold coinage, the requirement for the eagle was satisfied by the national arms for most of the 19th century.
Barber Quarter, circa 1890s:
1800 Eagle
http://www.usrarecoininvestments.com/images/coin_info/gold_eagles/1800-gold-eagle.jpg
1815 Half Eagle
http://www.coinfacts.com/half_eagles/capped_bust_half_eagles/1815_half_eagle_rev.jpg
1864 Silver Dollar
http://coinauctionshelp.com/SeatedDollarpictures/1864_rev.jpg
Personally, I think the quality of U.S. coin design peaked between 1907 (the St. Gaudens series of gold coins) and 1919 (the Peace dollar) and has been going downhill ever since, accelerating with the end of the requirement for Liberty and the eagle.
Joseph McMillan;79637 wrote:
Personally, I think the quality of U.S. coin design peaked between 1907 (the St. Gaudens series of gold coins) and 1919 (the Peace dollar) and has been going downhill ever since, accelerating with the end of the requirement for Liberty and the eagle.
I strongly agree with you on this point Joseph. I collect no US Mint coins with the portraits of dead people upon them with the sole exception of the 1892 and 1893 Columbian Exposition half dollars.
As for the Peace Dollar, it would have been better if it had been a commemorative coin using the original design minted only in 1921. Unfortunately the talented designer was under the impression that the coin was not going to be for general circulation and therefore created an artistic high relief medallion type coin that received many complaints from banks that it did not stack or roll well, forcing the Mint to flatten out the relief and spoil the design from 1922 onward.
By the way, the old law that required the half dollar coin to have an eagle on the reverse was still in force when the Franklin half dollar was introduced, causing the Mint to place an incongruous small eagle to the right of the Liberty Bell.
David Pritchard;79641 wrote:
By the way, the old law that required the half dollar coin to have an eagle on the reverse was still in force when the Franklin half dollar was introduced, causing the Mint to place an incongruous small eagle to the right of the Liberty Bell.
That’s right! I had forgotten.
For those who have never seen what David and I are talking about:
$20 Double Eagle designed by Augustus St. Gaudens:
http://www.usagold.com/gold/coins/pics/gold-coin-st-gaudens.jpeg
St. Gaudens $10 Eagle:
http://www.usagold.com/gold/coins/pics/gold-coin-indian-10.jpeg
1921 Peace Dollar by Anthony de Francisci (thanks to David for correcting my error on the date)
http://peacedollars.com/images/Peace-Dollar-home.jpg
Relevance to heraldry: the eagles on the reverse.
I have to agree that St. Gaudens created the most beautiful designs. I particularly like the profile of Liberty on his dollar, and the eagle on the $20 Double Eagle.
THe only coin I think on par with St. Gaudens is the 20 Franc. The early 20th century was a good time for coins.
http://lainson.eu/french20fr1910.JPG
I was not happy with many of the state quarter designs. Many of them left a lot of unused space, and seemed to have been designed by committee which threw together random symbols and items.
xanderliptak;79645 wrote:
I was not happy with many of the state quarter designs. Many of them left a lot of unused space, and seemed to have been designed by committee which threw together random symbols and items.
For the most part, the state and territorial quarter series designs have been disappointing not just artistically but in the choices of symbols to represent the states. I have to agree with Alexander that the problems with the designs have most likely been caused by compromises made in committee.
While a number of the State quarters leave much to be desired, there are a few that IMO are excellent—the Liberty Tree on IIRC the Connecticut quarter & the three ships on the James River on the Virginia quarter come quickly to mind—both fairly simple in concept and IMO very well executed.
Too bad the series didn’t feature state seals or flags!—maybe that could be another series. Not that the arms are all well designed, with a few nice exceptions, but it would be IMO a nice focus with a consistent theme.
Charter Oak for Connecticut, I think.
For Virginia, a heraldic application of the same theme:
http://o.b5z.net/i/u/6147377/i/episcopaldiobigcolor_small.gif
Arms of the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia, designed (I think) by Col Harry Temple: the Susan Constant, Godspeed, and Discovery bring the light of the Gospel to a land in darkness.
Same ships in the arms of Christ Church, Alexandria:
http://www.americanheraldry.org/pages/uploads/President/wash-cc.gif
Joe’s right—the Charter Oak. All in all, my favorite among the state quarters. But then I do have a large oak in my back yard, so perhaps not entirely objective.
Am I the only one who looked at the thread title and thought, "But nickel’s NOT a heraldic metal!"?
Darren wrote, "Am I the only one who looked at the thread title and thought, "But nickel’s NOT a heraldic metal!"?
...and that from a Canadian! It is of course only a matter of time before the CHA adds Nickel to its armorial palette, along with Copper and Rose —if they haven’t already!
In this context, bleu celeste is looking better and better!
Very funny.
Madalch;79752 wrote:
Am I the only one who looked at the thread title and thought, "But nickel’s NOT a heraldic metal!"?
When one thinks of nickel, Canada and our own states of Wisconsin and Minnesota come to mind. Despite being known for mining nickel, the Canadians have strayed from using it or using as much of it in their own five cent coins a number of times over the past 90 years, in favour of cheaper metals. This of course would never happen here in the US as Wisconsin and Minnesota have four US Senators to watch out for their states’ mining interests. Thus the current US five cent piece, made of 75% copper and 25% nickel costs the US Treasury 7.7 cents per coin.
It should be noted that it was the Congressional representatives of these two states that pressed for the introduction of the five cent nickel and the three cent nickel during the Civil War despite the fact that the US Mint had not had much success in their earlier attempts to use this harder metal in the Flying Eagle Cent of 1857-1858, and the Indian Head cent for the years 1859-1864. The metal was very hard on the steel dies of this period causing them to crack and crumble prematurely. Was it a coincidence that the five cent nickel and three cent nickel were produced in 1865, just months after the small cent alloy of cupro-nickel was dropped in mid-1864 in favour of the more manageable bronze alloy? I suppose that the Treasury Secretary was not in a position to alienate two state delegations during a civil war.