I try to find the unusual and more scarce large Lucky Nickels and Lucky Penny souvenirs. Usually these are about 3 inches in diameter and from the first half of the 1900's. Not only was, and still is some debate on which American Indian posed as a model on the obverse of our "Buffalo Nickel" but we may have an argument for which Bison posed for the reverse. I am referring to "Black Diamond", James Earle Fraser's reported model for the reverse of the Buffalo Nickel. However, we may have "Bronx" as the actual model, a bison who was for many years was the herd leader of the bison at the Bronx Zoo. According to Fraser, the animal that appears on the reverse is the American bison Black Diamond. In an interview published in the New York Herald on January 27, 1913, Fraser was quoted as saying that the animal, which he did not name, was a "typical and shaggy specimen" which he found at The Bronx Zoo. Fraser later wrote that the model was not a plains buffalo, but none other than Black Diamond, the most contrary animal in the Bronx Zoo. "I stood for hours ... He refused point blank to permit me to get side views of him, and stubbornly showed his front face most of the time." However, Black Diamond was never at the Bronx Zoo, but instead lived at the Central Park Zoo until he was sold and slaughtered in 1915. Black Diamond's mounted head is still extant, and has been exhibited at coin conventions. The placement of Black Diamond's horns differs considerably from that of the animal on the nickel, leading to doubts that Black Diamond was Fraser's model. The Zoo ... In 1895, a group made up largely of members of the Boone and Crockett Club founded the New York Zoological Society for the purposes of founding a zoo, promoting the study of zoology, and preserving wildlife. The Bronx Zoo is located within Bronx Park in the Bronx NY, a borough of New York City. It is the largest metropolitan zoo in the United States and among the largest in the world.
Good information in this post, but that last section just makes it really hard to hit the "Like" button. There should've been a sign on the other side of the fence; the real "exhibit" of sub-human behavior was on the outside.
There, I can understand that. I edited and removed. Not for the "like" but to agree with your point. Thanks.
Well, I'm kind of torn, because I don't want people to forget the horrific things that were still taken for granted years after slavery was abolished. But this probably isn't a fruitful forum to pursue that.
