NOW Articles Written By Members

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In this space, I try to stay away from things that would send the average person running for a mental facility. It is why I don’t post my poetry here, why you also don’t see pictures of any members with or without a shirt on (there are many roads to happiness, after all), but today I have to walk on the dark side a bit and say the most recent United States Presidential election got me thinking about our coins.

Now, before anyone thinks I am near making a partisan point or beginning pontification, I want to make clear – as I have in prior reports – I am certainly not about to walk that path. It distracts from the hobby, gives me a headache, and certainly can be said to be a part of the chat around age in the last and long contest.

“Trump is a corpse held together by string and day-old masking tape.”

“Biden is senile and thinks Glen Miller is still coming out of his LaSalle radio.”

Some petty and prescient points, to be sure. But, aren’t our coins the same?

For decades, all we’ve had to expect on the penny, nickel, dime, quarter, half-dollar, and dollar are Lincoln, Jefferson, Roosevelt, Washington, Kennedy, and Sacagawea. All these designs were interesting, fresh, and progressive when they came out. But after a century of one, a near-century for Jefferson, Roosevelt, and Washington, and people who were fresh when Kennedy and Sacagawea were first coined being now old enough to retire or just finishing up some higher education, I am wondering and have been for a while, who or what else should take spots over?

There are certainly several perspectives one can have in the debate. On the one hand, there is a strong case for returning to classical depictions of Liberty as an American woman. After all, designs in this area are often considered some of our society’s best work; they have been around for the majority of the time America has been independent, and are a nice way to insulate ourselves from the insufferable partisan fights to come over what figures who are deceased and from politics after Kennedy should get some sort of due when the Mint makes a change.

The latter part of that paragraph is part of an opinion some other people share. On our coins, we have recognized statesmen since the beginning, with Lincoln in 1909. However, since we entered the modern era with the end of the Second World War, are there truly any unifying figures who would be worthy of such a commemoration? Nixon disliked Jews and had several demoted or fired from government jobs due to their faith. Reagan was later revealed on tape to have described Black folks as “monkeys” who were “still uncomfortable wearing shoes.” Carter enabled decades of corruption and padded Hosni Mubarak’s bank with his deal between Egypt and Israel; H.W. Bush was tied to God knows what through the C.I.A., we all know way too much about Clinton and W. Bush thanks to cable news, and do I really, truly need to mention Obama or the most recent two oldies?

Perhaps Martin Luther King Jr. is the best and only choice instead of a president?

The bottom line is, what we have now needs to be shaken up a bit, in my own view. Societies stagnate when they cannot advance with the basics, and more than 25 years of some figures having the honor of being on change in your pocket is enough. Make circulating commemoratives that are outright bananas, have a coin with no design on it, and just flat text explaining what it is, or honestly, I would even take a series that just reuses some of the eagles found throughout our U.S. coin history.

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