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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Owle, post: 1426375, member: 22004&quot;]I found a copy of Breen&#039;s coin encyclopedia where I believe he went into Comstock&#039;s role as a censor.&nbsp; Tangling with Saint-Gaudens was most unfortunate, with how top notch SG was.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>In 1892 with the Pan-Pac expostion the great sculptor had a contract to help with the designs then.&nbsp; Here is how one numismatic company described it:</p><p><br /></p><p>&quot;In 1892, Saint-Gaudens was asked to design the official medal of the World Columbian Exposition in Chicago; it would be presented to prizewinning exhibitors. The obverse of Saint-Gaudens’s design, showing Columbus coming ashore, was noncontroversial; his reverse, which featured a torch-bearing naked youth carrying wreaths to crown the victors, was attacked by the censoring postal agent, Anthony Comstock, as obscene. The exposition directors hastily withdrew the reverse design and replaced it with one created by Barber which, according to numismatic historian Walter Breen, was “notable only for banality”. A furious Saint-Gaudens swore to have nothing more to do with the Mint or its employees, and for the next decade refused all commissions which might involve him with that bureau.&quot;</p><p><a href="http://premiercoingalleries.com/background-history-of-saint-gaudens-gold-coin/" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://premiercoingalleries.com/background-history-of-saint-gaudens-gold-coin/" rel="nofollow">http://premiercoingalleries.com/background-history-of-saint-gaudens-gold-coin/</a></p><p><br /></p><p>I would agree that the classical designs harkening back to ancient Greece was not inappropriate as long as they did not cross the line.&nbsp; This is the old Hellenism-Hebraism divide that Matthew Arnold discusses in his essays, &quot;Culture and Anarchy&quot;.&nbsp;&nbsp; The first culture prized beauty and creativity for its own sake; the latter valued action and accomplishment and &#039;family values&quot; for lack of a better term.&nbsp; Comstock was an embodiment of the latter.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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