Origins and Politics of the 1971 Eisenhower Dollar Design

The 1971 Eisenhower Mintage: Three Types​

In the last thread we learned that the history of the Eisenhower dollar was rooted in the Silver Dollar lineage of the American Dollar. We also discussed that American coinage had just recently undergone large scale changes with the advent of the clad coinage and the move away from precious metals in coins. New materials and techniques were being experimented on and the New Cartwheel sized dollar presented unique and new challenges in both the designs and the machinery of the new mandate.

A novice might mistakenly believe that with just minor variation, coin designs for silver are easily transposed to other metals such as the copper/nickel clad used in todays dimes and quarter, or even from clad to silver, or nickel to gold. But the fact is that all these metals are a different medium for the artwork which they display and it often takes a considerable learning curve for the artists and engravers to produce great art for current presses and materials.

The examples of initial failures when materials or machines are altered are littered in American coinage. The 1794 Dollars not only suffered a poor design for silver, but the press itself was completely inadequate to make a great coin. As historically important these coins are, great art they are not. The movement from large coppers to the Nickel based Flying Eagle cent was a spetacular failure. While the design was borrowed from the best of American coinage, the metal was so hard that the given technology strained badly on the production creating a plethora of cracked dies, weak strikes and terrible die life right from the first strikes. The use of the Indian Head (Buffalo ) Nickel design, one of the great triumphs of American coinage, on the Nickel suffers from a lack of all the subtlety in gold. The Morgan Dollar was one of the great marriages of art, material and technology ever in the history of coins. But the silver cartwheels were exceptionally understood and the radiating warmth that the silver gives these coins would translate horridly if it was attemped on the cold steel of modern clad coins. One of the few designs that did transfer well was the American Walking Liberty design. But even this wild success took several years for the Mint to perfect as the design has gone through several improvements since the start of the ASE series. It also helps that the original half dollar was probably too small for the design to start with and that the business strikes of the half dollars suffered from a lack of detail, all of which modern minting techniques have overcome. You might say that the Walking Liberty design was ahead of its time.

Once we understand that luster, hardness, rigidity and toning all affect the final artistic outcome of coin designs, we can begin to understand better the challenges of bringing new designs of quality into fruition. In addition to that, the minting process is very complicated in its own right. The pressure of the dies need to be right and is different not only for different metals, but also for different designs. High and low reliefs require different treatments. Planchettes need different surfaces, annealing and washing. And the coins stamping itself affects the dies, which is a major consideration since these coins need to not only be mass produced, but the resulting strikes need to survive circulation, which is the most often primary reason for the coins to exist in the first place.

So it can be expected that in 1970 when political will was available to produce not only new Cartwheels, but also with a new design on new materials, the challenges for the designers and the engravers were great. Under these circumstances a lot of experimentation is recommended, and the engravers and the artists are best left to do their jobs with the least amount of political involvement as possible. But of course, none of this happened. Politics rippled right through the Eisenhower design and production, not enough time was given to work out the best striking and design features, and congrssional and executive branch pressure of all sorts was played out on the coins deisgn. Then at the end of 1971, with time running out, they nearly scratched the entire design and rushed out the resulting coins.

After all, this was the Cold War and our economy was tanking...

The process started out sensibly enough when Mint Director Mary Brooks bypassed the traditional dog and pony show and let Chief Engraver Frank Gasparro to draw up the initial designs in 1970. Poor Frank. I doubt he know what he was in for. The Ike Group has some terrific images of Gasparro's original designs which can be seen here http://ikegroup.org/SUNDMAN_files/image006.jpg and which I archived on my personal resources in case it ever disappears from the net. In addition, the Ikes group has the only image of the original Eisenhower reverse pattern that I've been able to find on the net which you can view here ==> http://ikegroup.org/SUNDMAN_files/image007.jpg and which I also archived for protection. One thing that you will immediately notice about the original design is how sculpted and art deco like the design was. The moon's craters are given loving detail and serious depth. The eagle nearly jumps off the metal with personality and the overstated boldness that an art deco design would entail. The eagle's head was a composite composition of its own with terrific detail. Overall it is a very bold design. Unfortunately, Gasparro had to know that the design was of such high relief as to impractical to ever put into mintage. But that wasn't were the real problems lurched.

The original design as a drawing was almost immediately rejected by the Mint Director based solely on political considerations. She wanted a friendly Eagle, not one ripping with boldness. As a result, the 1970 pattern has a “waving” right wing instead of the outstretched naturalistic wing of the original drawing. Subtle softening of many aspects of the reverse became aparent. Once a proposed template was accepted by the mint, Gasparro had to make a low relief version that wouldn't blow up the dies or the coins. He experimented with increasingly lowered reliefs trying to squeeze the greatest amount of relief possible out of the design. This process took up much of 1971. So from the beginning there was planned to be two Ike designs, a silver proof high relief and a clad business strike low relief. It seems that there was plans for a Proof clad as well since the proof clad planchettes were eventually shipped from San Fransisco to Denver. But the clad proof design never happened.

There is no question that the FEV variety of the low relief business strike was older that the evental dominant variety. Additionally there can be no doubt that the low relief design was Disneyfied by political forces. And then something unexpected happened. The FEV failed all the tests for mass production in either low relief silver or clads. This ment that with time running out, Gasparro had to redesign the low relief reverse. And in doing so he reinstalled some of the ferocity back into the eagle, and really nobody could do anything about it. And as a result the 1971 mintage has 2 type low relief designs, and one high relief design, three altogether.

 

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Resources
http://www.coinsdig.com/history+eisenhower+dollar
http://ikegroup.org/SUNDMAN.htm
http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art53683.asp

 

High Relief 1971 Proof

 

Low Relief Example

 

I like Ike. I even think the reverse design is pretty good art. The obverse isn't bad art when you consider what Gasparro had to work with.

People just don't realize how scarce these coins are in nice shape. With most dates it's not just that superb gems are rare but so too are gems and even choice specimens. I can't count the number of original 1971 uncs I've seen yet there hasn't been a single gem and a mere handfull of choice specimens. The '76 type 1 can drive you up the wall if you want one well struck and fairly clean. Even in the mint set only about 2% are choice and gems are very very rarely seen.

The coins were set aside in large numbers but that just means that there are lots of poor coins around today. Quality was so poor that a lot of those originally set aside have been returned to circulation. Uncs will never be scarce probably but nice examples were the day they were made and haven't gotten more common since. Gem Morgans probably outnumber gem Ikes by 100: 1.

 

FEV Example

 

I once picked up about 2 dozen 1971's hoping to cherry pick. I did find varieties but the condition of the coin was nothing close to gem or the condition of your run of the milll Morgan. The clad metal seems to be very brittle.

Ruben

 

Quiz: About 10% of the FEV's are minted on Proof Clad Planchetes. Since there was no production of Clad Proofs that year, or until 1973, why would the SF mint ship Denver Proof Clad plancettes?

 

Maybe next time I'll make a write of on Lucille Ball and Mary Tyler Moore. Lucy got better ratings than Ike's State of the Union Address.

 

No answers to the quiz?

 

Great FYI Post. Thank you Ruben.

 

I thought it was, but nobody read it. If i could post the patterns without a gross violation of copyright, that might have helped. But if you follow the links you'll see some rare and stunning images.

Ruben

 

wish I had a government image of the pattern

 

I like the political pressure angle of the coin. It is a combination of propaganda (we went to the moon to establish peace) on the reverse; and political self importance on the obverse since Ike was a hero of Nixon's and in 1968 Nixon's daughter had married David Eisenhower (Ike's grandson).

 

Well once the decision was made not to strike clad proofs in 1971, what else would you do with the planchets? San Francisco ships rejected proof planchets to Denver to be used as a matter of course. Why wouldn't they do that with the Ike planchets as well.

One thing though, clad proof Ikes were made before the Bicentennials. Clad proof Ikes were added to the standard proof sets in 1973.

 

I didn't know Nixon's daughter married an Eisenhower. That must of made Watergate that much harder on the family. This was part two of what I hoped would be a nice collection of permanent Eisenhower Dollar threads. I hope this is well written and worthy of scholarly review. Did you see those patterns?

Ruben

 

Correct!! But the interesting thing is that my research doesn't show that the mint had authority to make the Proof Clads. And your correct about the Proof Sets. My oversite - peer review wins every time. I'll fix it.

Ruben

 

Were the Silver Uncirculated coins Low or High Relief?

 

The weirdest thing about the whole affair was that when it was all done, Gasparro obviously got fed up and put out inferior if not a sloppy design. He seemed to have had some job security and was tired of being pushed and pulled.

Ruben

 

One thing not mentioned yet but that is well known is that the reverse design is the same as the Apollo 11 mission design worn by the astronauts and used in conjunction with the moon flight. If memory serves it was designed by one of the astronauts; Frank Borman perhaps. It was modified somewhat for the coin.

The bicentennial design was the third place winner in a national contest.