Filling up albums

I suppose that they could claim the Peace dollar depiction of Lady Liberty, but we had Lady Liberty on our coins when France was a fledgling republic with royal blood still staining the cobblestones of Paris.

Did you know that the image commonly called "indian head" on the pennies is actually a depiction of Lady Liberty in a Plains indian headdress? The Flowing Hair, Capped Bust, Draped Bust, Seated, Standing, and Walking Liberty designs as well as the "mercury" and all the Barber heads are different faces of the same American spirit.

How our national ideal of Liberty was supplanted by "freedom" with a lower case 'f' has to do with how our republican union of States became a legislative democracy with the states relegated to the status of political subdivisions in a central government put in place in defiance of the design contained in the Constitution.

Anyway, the hobby of collecting US coins is, in part, a study of history. Studying that history eventually leads to taking a good look at what happened to us as a nation and as a people as the coinage changed. The change from solid, stable precious metal coinage to wildly inflated and unstable fiat money can be tracked by changes in the coinage. The trouble started with the Lincoln penny and that is the one piece of coinage which has remianed the most nearly constant in design as all the other coins were changed to images of presidents such as we have now.

 

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Still, Lady Liberty is a distinctly American image, copied by the French. Our slide from a free republic to a democracy is due in large part to the desire of some here to emulate the French ideal of collectivism rather than our own model of government based on the sovereignty of the individual in whom God vested inalienable rights.

The French have a triumvirate of 'liberte, egalite`,fraternite", represented by two women and a man from Roman imagery. The American model is that of Liberty depicted alone with the solitary eagle for a reverse design. The solitary images on both sides of the coins are representative of the individual, whose rights government is instituted to secure, rather than the collectivist ideal of subsumation of the individual for the greater good of the collective.

As to the seated design, the symbolism differs from the seated Brittania image in that the British version represents a sovereign national ruler of an empire whose identity is the identity of the nation, while our own seated Liberty represents the American ideal of the source of sovereignty, the individual whose liberty is the eternal check on tyranny. The American ideal of sovereignty is the philosophy that sovereign power is merely delegated to the government by the individual and that government has no sovereignty but that entrusted it by the true sovereigns, the citizens.

Our history and the philosophy behind the symbolism is an important part of numismatics. Despie artistic influences from elsewhere, the symbolism on our coins is unique, or at least it was before the images of regrettably unhanged tyrants became the norm for obverse imagery. Now, having the images of some of the admirable early presidents along with the images of the two worst tyrants in our history makes our circulation coins little different from those of the failed Greek democracy or the Roman empire.

A change in the imagery of the circulation coinage signalled a change in the relationship between government and governed. Where we once had government by consent of the governed, we now have government rule in defiance of the original agreement between the states. In effect, we are now ruled by the government where the intent of the founders was to make government our servant, to be ruled by the citizenry.

Images of actual people should indeed be limited to commemorative issues and should never appear on our circulation coinage, I can agree with you there.

 

Earnie,

Thanks for taking the time to write such an eloquent post.
Can't say that I agree with the last sentence, but that doesn't mean that I can't appreciate a well thought out opinion.
Well done.

 

Well I for one have not changed my mind concerning our coins or currency. My post was in regards to the founding fathers wanting a Form of Liberty on our coinage, instead of a president or other living person.

 

Well CM, you certainly gave me a new perspective, thank you for the insight. But tyrants and should have been hanged? I was never too nuts about the one, but I always liked and admired FDR. His "date that will live in infamy" speech is one of my all-time favorites and a heck of a lot better than whatever forgetable utterance after 9/11.

 

Thanks, Jody. Glad you read it. I'm kind of passionate about our history, since two generations of my ancestors fought their own governments for the priciple of government by consent of the governed. The first generation won their war and the next generation lost. It was the act of standing up and risking everything for principle that counted.

I don't think we have the same kind of people in this country nowadays as we had then.

 

Yes, I know. I was picking at you. You've made it clear that you favor inflationary fiat money. Maybe we'll see Mikey Castle's face on the new $1,000.00 aluminum coin that will be struck once we're into hyperinflation. ;-)

 

FDR really deserved hanging. He managed to get the possession of US gold coins made a felony. The law he got pushed through Congress required Americans to hand over their gold coins and their gold certificate currency. What is there to admire about someone who takes the gold money from its rightful owners, the American citizens who owned it, and gives it to Joseph Stalin? Stalin was a mass murderer of his own citizens and FDR worshipped him like a god.

I was talking about Lincoln and FDR, yes. They were tyrants who deserved hanging. The fact that their images are on our circulation coins shows what an ill-informed citizenry we've become.

There are US gold coins for collectors to own thanks to some Americans who kept theirs in defiance of their government. Think about that the next time you see US gold coins for sale. The speeches that politicians give aren't even their own words. Speechwriters compose their utterances and they're always apropos to nothing based on actual fact.

 

Oh, I was talking about JFK and FDR, not Lincoln. You convinced me about whose face should be on our coins but not about FDR. He lead us through the Great Depression and WWII and I never ever heard that he worshipped Stalin. In fact just the opposite, FDR kept putting Stalin off about opening a second front and who can say about the aftermath of the war? And Lincon, you'll have to elaborate about him. It is my opinion that if John Wilkes Booth had not killed him, we would not have the biggest social issue that faces our country.

 

FDR prolonged the depression. It never ended until he finally died in office. We adopted an amendment to the Constitution to keep any future president from becoming ruler for life once we were finally rid of FDR. Buying into the FDR and Lincoln myths makes citizens ignorant so that the same thing can happen again. It could happen with the current frat-boy in the White House or with his Skull&Bones brother who is going to run against him this fall.

FDR kept us in a depression and led us into WWII. He campaigned on the democrat's platform of limited government and rolling back Hoover's protectionist policies, then started instituting Eugene Debs' campaign platform once he was in office. His socialist programs are still in place and are destroying our economy, more and more every year.

You could start by reading the US Constitution. Try to find the relevant sections which grant a president the sweeping powers which Lincoln and FDR exercised. Both men created unnecessary war involvements for the US then seized dictatorial powers using the wars as an excuse. FDR used the depression as his excuse until he could get us into war on the side of Stalin.

The hobby of coin collecting has been distorted by the departure from the Constitutional rule of law. Consider that when silver and gold were the standards for coinage, yearly coin issues would be limited to the tens of millions per mint at most. With the end of the gold circulation coins and notes redeemable in gold, runs of some silver coins expanded into the hundreds of millions. Now the coinage has runs of billions as in the case of the 1995 P&D state quarters. The mints don't have to melt older issues for the bullion to stike new issues, so the rarities are going to be limited to errors and special strikes not for circulation.

This makes the hobby much less accessible to people of smaller means as more money chases fewer rare coins. If the hobby is to remain what it has been for centuries, a learning process which involves economic, political and social history as well as an entertaining way of satisfying the creative drive for acquisition of rarities, those engaging in the hobby will have to learn the whys behind the issuance of coins as well as the quantities issued and the various varieties of design. That has always been a large part of numismatics but now, new collectors don't care about any of that. They get their history from TV fairy tales and can't see the point of numismatics any longer.

Without the study of money and what coinage is supposed to mean to the economy according to the Constitution, you may as well collect modern plastic soft drink bottles for all the enjoyment there'll be in the hobby.

 

Douglas

Douglas
As other have said the best way WILL not be the fastest way---

Also to anyone who is interested:

George Washinton asked NOT to ever be on a coin or paper money
Why don't we honour a man's wish--anyway...I need to get going

Speedy

WHEN YOU FIND THAT YOU'RE ON THE SIDE OF THE MAJORITY IT IS TIME TO REFORM!!!

 

Words to live by for sure. As the great Southern writer James Lee Burke once wrote, "If everybody agrees on somethin', it's just bound to be wrong."

 

FDR had alot of faults but he was a president in a time when Hitlers,Stalins,and Tojo's where actually attempting to kill everyone else in a power grab, and FDR stood up with the great Winston C. and destoryed most of that evil and contained the rest.
I agree with Douglas that FDR did avoid opening a second front to relieve the Russians to let the Russians bleed. Why else invade Sicliy and Italy which pretty much gave up fighting and was really occupied at that stage. Let the Russians bleed so thier ground forces won't march to the Atlantic. The containment worked. It took a few generations but it worked without costing millions upon millions of lives. I know Stalin was nothing more then a Georgian bank robber gangster who couldn't cut it in Priest School and it would have been nice to have him taken out. But at what cost? The people of Russia and their captured nation states never really bought the party line,so it only was a matter of time and I was glad to see the fall of Sovietism in Moscow in person. FDR did embrace aspects of Socialism but what is wrong with providing Social Security to our old, having restrictions on how long a person could work with out having a break, with building highways, dams and planting forests with work programs. FDR had his faults and he was President for to long but he did stand up even if he was in a wheelchair. It was others after him that destoryed his programs. Lets keep him on the dime. As for Lincoln, Could that war ever been avoided. Sooner or later their would have been conflict over expansion and trade for I have read that the south was planning on ending slavery themselves due to demographics and the danger that presented. Besides sharecroppers are cheaper and the northern factory owners showed how emigrants could be used. Now I agree that the people are fading from the process of government and are at times actually being governed by special interests here and from overseas. Do you have any idea how much middle eastern oil money is spent in this country for unAmerican reasons. But what can I say when I live in a state where half the people don't vote and half of those who do, don't know how to. It could happen again down here. I might be rambling but what I really want to say is let's have a movement to put Ali Landry on a coin.

 

Well, what's wrong with all those things is that they are not powers granted to the federal government in the Constitution. The programs are all unconstitutional and the real trouble is that they haven't been destroyed, and are still destroying us. If those things are good ideas, the Constitution has to be amended to allow for them, or we have no rules for government to follow and they can do whatever they like as long as it isn't specifically prohibited, or even if it is. FDR, Wilson and Lincoln were all three destructive presidents, IMO. Since the two worst are made idols by having their images on coins, they are the ones who should be subject to scrutiny.

Anyway, Miss Ali could be the next model for Lady Liberty on the coins, because the other Lady Liberty images were surely based on the engravers' idea of a beautiful woman. That would be just fine by me. Naturally, though, it ain't up to me.


I would rather have our lawful form of government as precribed in the Constitution. If we had that, we would have sound money, precious metal coins and this hobby would be much more fascinating as well as more affordable for all. When the coinage isn't tied to precious metals, the issues become so huge that there will be no point in collecting examples of them. Having a cartel of private banks exercising the exclusive Congressional power of issuing money has been massively destructive and will eventually ruin our monetary system if it isn't stopped. Once our currency collapses, we'll all be too busy trying to survive to have any hobbies anyway.

 

Well there are four kinds of people.

1 Those who make things happen

2 Those who try to change what happened

3 Those who deal with what happened

4 And those who complain about what happened.

It is far easier to state what is wrong than it is to offer any credible advice on how to change it. It is also easier to complain about it, than to actually work on changing it.

Now I am sure this will infuriate some, but the facts remain the same. If you want change, you have to WORK towards changing it.

No, change isn't easy, but what worthwhile cause is?

Then you have to ask yourself which kind of person do you wish to be.

 

Now, now. I'm sure everyone can think of more kinds of people than that. I can think of a fifth kind:

The kind that tries to pretend nothing happened or if it did happen, it was all for the best.

There's a sixth kind too:

The kind who has no idea what happened and wouldn't care if he knew.

There may even be a seventh kind:

The kind that hates for anyone to point out that something happened.

 

I could understand your idea of not putting faces of real people on our coins like idols of Baal for if Ali Landry was on a coin, I surely would worship it. Kidding of course about the worship part but Ali really should be on something. I think that we all realize that nothing is going to be changed here and in America we are all suppose to have a right to our viewpoints. It's when I'm right and you wrong or worse I don't care that democracry falls apart. The centeralist of democracies are not fence sitters they just like to take the best ideals from the left and the right and fuse them were they fit best when they are needed for a fit and of course I'm right about this and if you disagree then you must be a liberal communist facist pig who doesn't like green eggs and ham. It's Dr. Suess birthday or something today and I'm going to eat some cornchips now so good night to one and all.

 

Oh, The consitution is one of the most beautiful things ever written and I wish it was required reading for anyone who comes to this country or is born here. We have people who could tell you David Letterman's top 10 list at the water cooler but they have no ideal of the Bill of Rights or what a consitutional amendment is which of course cmbdii does and I guess he knows about Roosevelt trying to stack the Supreme Court by trying to increase how many Judges there were but the consitutions divisions of power stopped that. My wife is sleeping now and you know what, her image should be on a coin. Mother with child.

 

Hear, hear, Andy. The real heroes in any country are to be found among the citizenry, not among the self serving rascals who run for office. Your wife and child, or mine would be a much more apropos image for a coin than any politician I can think of, past or present.

Look up the San Marino 500 lira silver proofs of the '70s. The 1972 or 73 has a woman holding her baby up in the air, playing. That beats anything I've seen on any coin with the picture of a ruler on the obverse.