Coins showing current presidents?!

I know the mint makes the presidential $1 coins, however it only features presidents who are dead. I'm asking how you'd feel if circulating coins whether it be the nickel/quarter/half dollar portrays the current ruling president?! after either 4/8 years, a new bust will be shown.

 

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Hard no, that would be a disaster in todays climate.

Also and more importantly Presidents don't "rule" or aren't supposed to, theyre supposed to "serve"

 

No. Absolutely no. It would be an affront to the (small-r) republican values on which the US was founded.

 

Nope. That is a monarchist practice, and shouldn't be done here. Let other countries do that, not the United States of America.

 

I personally, as much as I love and respect our founding fathers, cannot STAND having presidents on our coins. We are not a nation of monarchs. All of our coins should be emblematic of Liberty. For paper money prohibit any politician ever, but put great Americans on there, rotating every 5 years. Edison, Carnegie (for libraries), Loammi Baldwin, etc. Even those in today's politics would be tough, maybe we should just put Liberty on everything to avoid to PC fights.

Come to think of it, look at our paper money at the end of the 19th century/beginning of 20th century. Do that again, Educational notes, Bisons, etc.

 

I thought a person had to be deceased for 25 years before they could appear on a US coin? Came following JFK immediate addition to the half dollar in 1964???

 

George Washington was totally opposed to that.

 

The outpouring of grief during that period was incredible. I know because I was in junior high school at the time. Trying to block the JFK half dollar at that time would have been political suicide for anyone who tried it.

Here is an interesting fact. It might have been the Kennedy quarter instead, but Mrs. Kennedy did not want to see Washington replaced.

 

Calvin Coolidge was alive and in office when this coin was issued.

 

Eunice Kennedy Schriver was too I believe.

 

The phenomenon of placing living individuals wasn't just unique to coins but paper currency as well. President Lincoln was on this $10 note during his lifetime. His Secretary of the Treasury, Salmon P. Chase, also appears on the $1 note. Moreover, during the 1860s, there was also controversy surrounding the portrayal of living individuals on fractional currency notes. As a result, Congress passed a law that stated "that no portrait or likeness of any living person hereafter engraved, shall be placed upon any of the bonds, securities, notes, fractional or postal currency of the United States.

 

Spenser Clark, who developed the wet printing process, put his picture on this five cent Fractional Currency note. It caused the uproar noted in the previous post.



Of course, no one seemed to mind when his boss, Francis Spinner, put himself on the 50 cent note. He signed them and handed them out like calling cards.



This "justice" Fractional note was hand signed by Spinner.

 

The 1921 Alabama Centennial Half Dollar depicts the then incumbent Governor Thomas Kilby on the Obverse. President Calvin Coolidge, Arkansas Senator Joseph T. Robinson, and Virginia Senator Carter Glass would later appear on commemorative coins during their lifetime.

Edited:

 

Thanks. I always wonder why there were so many Spinner signed notes. not a serious collector, but more of a hoarder at times of fractional currency. I find them interesting. I really love the 3 cent notes. No one believes my kids when they tell them that they own 3 cent notes, 2 cent and half cent coins, etc. Yeah, trying really hard to get my kids interested. Hook them on US, move them over to ancients is the goal.

 

I think that Joseph Robinson was alive when this piece was issued. If he wasn't the dates were very close. At any rate he was the Senate majority leader when legislation for this Arkansas - Robinson commemorative half dollar was passed. Talk about chutzpah!

 

The three and five cent notes, which were part of the Third Issue of Fractional Currency, were very small and apparently did not hold up well in circulation. The nickel three and five cent pieces were issued to redeem and replace them.

 

How’d that happen?

 

The coin celebrated the nation’s sesquicentennial. Washington and Coolidge were the first and most recent presidents at the time. The Democrats were very weak at the time, and Coolidge was a Republican.

 

President Coolidge's opponent also received the lowest popular vote percentage of any Democrat since 1860.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1924_United_States_presidential_election

 

Here's a thought. Why not put a modern day military hero that we can relate to, like Audie Murphy, on a bill or coin. We certainly would not run out of American hero's!