Because that is the only way Americans can claim that they have "coin" alignment while most of the world uses "medal" alignment. Somewhat more seriously, for everyday use the alignment does in my opinion not really matter. A while ago I read somewhere that, if for some reason you need/want to quickly check the other side of a coin, say using the thumb and digit finger, you do the top-over-bottom flip. This way a US coin will be properly aligned before and after flipping it. Of course, as soon as you put a coin on, say, your middle and ring fingers, and flip it by bending them, a US coin would be upside down. From a collector's point of view, I prefer the orientation that in the US is called medal alignment. Maybe that is why several countries that used to use "coin" alignment have switched over to "medal" alignment. Makes displaying and watching coins in albums, coin cards, etc. much easier. Christian
As a lawyer would say, your question assumes a fact not in evidence. Doesn't mean it isn't true, but you haven't produced any evidence that it is true. I just grabbed one volume of my OFEC collection and checked two pages. 23 of the coins were coin oriented and 17 had medal orientation; but one page was almost entirely coin oriented and the other was heavily weighted in favor of medal orientation. Many countries use each style, but until someone has sampled at least a couple of hundred different regimes, there's really no way to say that a majority, let alone "almost every" use one or the other system.
Don't really know either how many countries in the world use which orientation. What I do remember is that, when the first euro coins were issued, the "medal" alignment used for these coins was new for some member states, like France. But all pieces are now aligned that way. Similarly, Switzerland used to have silver circulation coins with "coin" alignment. Well, those denominations (0.50, 1, 2, 5 fr) now all are in CuNi but also have "medal" alignment. There are a few other cases where a country went from "coin" (or a mix) to "medal" - I am ready to admit that this may be a somewhat eurocentric view. But, and that was my main point, I don't know of any that in the past used "medal" and now use "coin" orientation. Christian
I can't prove it but I suspect it may have been another way of demonstrating our "independence" from Great Britain. During the colonial era and at the time the US mint was founded the British coinage were medal alignment. We may have done ours in coin alignment just to be different from them.
Don't forget our love of France And be like France, who we really looked up to at the time. Others have pointed out elsewhere that pre-President (liberty) US coins follow in the style of French.
