Within the classic silver and gold commemorative series, the portraits of nine different US presidents were used as primary obverse design elements on nine different coins. Among the nine presidents featured, three appeared on two different coins of the series. Know which?
George Washington was the first former president to appear on a commemorative coin, his portrait shared the obverse with General Lafayette on the Lafayette Memorial silver dollar in 1900. The next few presidential coin appearances were on gold commemoratives -- Thomas Jefferson and William McKinley were each featured on a gold $1.00 coin for the 1903 Louisiana Purchase Exposition. McKinley was featured again in 1917 on the gold $1.00 issued in honor of the fallen president and to support the construction of his National Birthplace Memorial in Niles, Ohio; McKinley was shot by an assassin on 6 September 1901 and died from complications related to his abdominal wounds on 14 September 1901 -- he was in the first year of his second term in office.
Abraham Lincoln was next up, being featured on the 1918 Illinois Statehood Centennial half-dollar. In 1922, Ulysses S. Grant was featured on the obverse of the silver half-dollar and the gold $1.00 that were issued to mark his birth centennial. Grant was the only former president to be featured on two different coins within the same classic commemorative program; the same design was used on the silver and gold coins.
In 1923, the
Monroe Doctrine Centennial half-dollar was released with portraits of former presidents James Monroe and John Quincy Adams on its obverse. Each man contributed significantly to the development of the
Monroe Doctrine -- Monroe was the sitting President but Adams, his Secretary of State, was the doctrine's primary author. Adams would follow Monroe as the nation's sixth President.
George Washington made his second appearance on a commemorative when his portrait once again shared the obverse of a coin, this time it was on the 1926 Sesquicentennial of American Independence half-dollar; the coin featured jugate portraits of Washington and Calvin Coolidge; Coolidge was the current President at the time of the sesquicentennial.
Coolidge and Washington were the last presidents to be featured on a classic commemorative coin. Going forward, while other politicians would be depicted (Senator Glass on the Lynchburg Sesquicentennial and Senator Robinson on the second type of the Arkansas Statehood Centennial half-dollar) no other presidents would appear.
At the top I asked if you could identify which US presidents appeared on two different classic commemoratives. If you didn't know then, hopefully you now know that they are Washington (1900, 1926), McKinley (1903, 1917) and Grant (silver and gold in 1922).
Posted 07/23/2012 12:06 am
