The U.S. Mint has produced - and continues to create - an astounding array of beautiful coins that even knowledgeable collectors miss. You may know the half-ounce and one-ounce American Arts gold medals (1980-1984) celebrating Helen Hayes, Frank Lloyd Wright, Willa Cather, Marian Anderson, Robert Frost, Grant Wood, Mark Twain, Louis Armstrong, Alexander Calder, and John Steinbeck. Do you know about the Bicentennial Medals of 1976, struck in bronze, silver, and gold; or the bronze, silver, and gold Colorado Statehood medal of 1976? American Gold and Silver: U.S. Mint Collector and Investor Coins and Medals, Bicentennial to Date, Dennis Tucker, Whitman Publishing LLC, 2016, 384 pages, $29.95. This compendium includes a history of gold and silver, as well as the early history of American coinage both as part of a substantial introduction to the highly artistic coins of the modern era, 1976 to present. It also delivers some coins that never were, abandoned proposals for American Arts medals honoring Ella Fitzgerald, Emily Dickinson, Bix Beiderbecke, and Buddy Holly. It closes with a large section on Assay Commission Medals, perhaps the most arcane and eclectic issues of the U.S. Mint commemorating Calvin Coolidge, Henry H. Fowler, the god Mercury, and Andrew W. Mellon among many others. The narrative is entertaining, informative, lively, and authoritative.
