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Posted 01/19/2015 4:12 pm
Thanks.
Funny story. When we were looking through the various designs, she really liked the Peace dollar because as a kid it is instantly recognizable as "The Statue of Liberty Coin". Then I let her in on where the design came from: the medalist's wife Theresa and she thought that was very cool.
My daughter then looked at the Morgans next to the Peace dollar and said "that lady needs to wash her hair!"
. Then I explained the history of the design symbolically as an example of US unity after the Civil War, and the fact that the "knots" in her hair were actually cotton bowls, wheat, tobacco, and corn leaves. She still was not impressed! 
She liked the Mercury design and as a political science professor I get to sort of ruin it for her by explaining what that "thing" on the back (the fasces) stands for to different people at different times. She was mildly shocked that one of the symbols of one of our WWII enemies remained on the coin throughout the war. This led to a show and tell about the reverse of the FDR dime along with a brief lecture that the fasces, before it became Mussolini's symbol, stood for unity and strength in America and as far back as the Roman Republic (FUN FACT: there's a fasces on the Gettysburg battle commem coin and also on the Bela Pratt 1/4 and 1/2 Eagle reverses, in the clutches of the bird)....... all this as a father, coin collector, and academic who studies the period made my month!
Funny story. When we were looking through the various designs, she really liked the Peace dollar because as a kid it is instantly recognizable as "The Statue of Liberty Coin". Then I let her in on where the design came from: the medalist's wife Theresa and she thought that was very cool.
My daughter then looked at the Morgans next to the Peace dollar and said "that lady needs to wash her hair!"
. Then I explained the history of the design symbolically as an example of US unity after the Civil War, and the fact that the "knots" in her hair were actually cotton bowls, wheat, tobacco, and corn leaves. She still was not impressed! She liked the Mercury design and as a political science professor I get to sort of ruin it for her by explaining what that "thing" on the back (the fasces) stands for to different people at different times. She was mildly shocked that one of the symbols of one of our WWII enemies remained on the coin throughout the war. This led to a show and tell about the reverse of the FDR dime along with a brief lecture that the fasces, before it became Mussolini's symbol, stood for unity and strength in America and as far back as the Roman Republic (FUN FACT: there's a fasces on the Gettysburg battle commem coin and also on the Bela Pratt 1/4 and 1/2 Eagle reverses, in the clutches of the bird)....... all this as a father, coin collector, and academic who studies the period made my month!
Edited by KevinH
01/19/2015 4:18 pm
01/19/2015 4:18 pm
all from circulation. Missing Ohio P. As I grew up, new series of coins started like the Presidentials and 
