Q. David Bowers
[COMMENTARY FROM WOOD]
Mr. Howland Wood, curator of the American Numismatic Society, New York City, whose familiarity with coin types should make him a competent judge, approves the design of the new dollar. Mr. Wood was a member of the ANA committee appointed to urge the passage by Congress of the resolution authorizing the Peace coin. He writes as follows:
"Whenever a new coin issue makes its appearance the press of the country takes special delight in criticizing minor points in the design and in overlooking, for the most part, the general effect of the whole. The press in recent years has found fault with such phases as high relief, non-stacking qualities and other points, without taking into consideration technical difficulties and limitations. The public in general is prone to condemn coins for one or two minor details, overlooking the ensemble. Again, it is human nature to oppose anything new or unaccustomed.
"The new Peace dollar is good; the design and composition is both bold and original. We understand that de Francisci, and the other artists competing had but two weeks in which to present their respective designs. If this is true, it is the fault of the government or those in charge of the new coinage no more time was allowed. Considering this, we think de Francisci-and, in fact, any other artist who competed should be congratulated.
"The head on the obverse is bold and artistic with much feeling in the rendering of the outline. One might criticize the youthful appearance, but that is a matter of personal opinion. The rays shooting from the coronet perhaps could be a little better defined; but if they were, they might not lend themselves so well to the design. The artist possibly worked over many alternatives, only to reject them, and doubtless his judgment in the matter was the best. The obverse, on the whole, measures up very well with the $10 gold piece, its nearest comparison.
"The reverse we consider very satisfactory. Its style is a little different from the obverse, but then the style of the $20 gold piece, which we can take for comparison, differs a little from its obverse. Some of the significance on the reverse has been withdrawn by the removal of the sword.
"On the whole, we have only favorable criticism to make regarding the new dollar. The lettering might desirably be slightly smaller and perhaps a little more delicately modeled, but lettering is one of the different elements of reconciliation with nearly all medals and coins, especially on our coinage where the artist is handicapped by the obligatory use of three mottoes, the name of the country and the denomination of the piece-too much for anyone coin to assimilate.
"Our thanks and congratulations go out to Mr. de Francisci.
"Howland Wood"
[COMMENTARY BY BRENNER]
"A so-called peace dollar has prematurely made its appearance. It lacks the artistic design which such a dollar, issued by a great nation, should have. It has caused great disappointment to those who conceived the idea of having the dollar issued, and who desired to have a peace dollar represent that which peace should represent; namely, beauty and delicacy, together with being symbolic of peace. The only issued evidences hastily and clumsily designed; not like the work of a sculptor or medalist, but of a novice. The coin is only attractive to those to whom all dollars look alike-look so solely because they are dollars and bear on the same the image and superscription of Caesar."
"It is unnecessary to say that it is not such as was contemplated by the members of the American Numismatic Association, who were inspired to action by a paper prepared by Mr. Farran Zerbe, then of San Francisco, Cal., and read at the national convention of the American Numismatic Association held at Chicago in August 1920, Mr. Zerbe being the first person to suggest the issuing by our government of a peace dollar.
"It is clearly not such a coin as your committee hoped for, who proposed and prepared a bill to be introduced into Congress, which was first submitted to the secretary of the Treasury, and the director of the Mint; but because of the fact that it carried with it an appropriation for $10,000 to be used to secure competition from sculptors and medalists in the designing of a dollar which would represent peace and be a coin which unborn generations would be proud of, the secretary of the Treasury and director of the Mint refused to approve the bill, who in turn suggested, and thereafter approved, the resolution which was introduced into Congress on May 9, 1921, and shortly thereafter was referred to the House Committee on Coinage, Weights and Measures, who on June 29, 1921 reported the resolutionwithout amendment and recommended its passage.
"For some reason unknown to your committee, such resolution apparently has been lost sight of, and nothing was heard concerning the peace dollar until suddenly newspaper articles appeared stating that the design of a peace dollar made by Anthony de Francisci, of New York, had been approved by the director of the Mint, and that the dies were in preparation for the minting of the same, which dollar is described by the Wall Street Journal in so much better terms than the writer can describe it, that I here incorporate it:"
OUR "FLAPPER" SILVER DOLLAR
A reader of The Wall Street Journal, quite unconsciously, concedes the entire case in an attempt to reply to criticism of the design on the new silver dollar.He says that many people will consider the head on that coin beautiful, and that, after all, it is only a matter of taste, upon which there can be no argument. The design is only a matter of taste after the settlement of a much more important matter of fact.
Did the designer and those who finally passed upon the die have any real, concrete understanding of what was required? The head is intended to represent the goddess of Liberty-a design used upon our coins, in one way or another, for more than a century. It was one used by the French to replace the head of Napoleon III. The head, then, is that of a goddess not a department-store "flapper." A sculptor of genius would have put into the face some quality of divinity. He would have suggested divine wisdom, courage, ardor, and serene confidence in the triumph of freedom,
Looked at in this way, the head on the new coin is merely that of a fairly attractive girl of 17, with a pleasing profile, whose immature chin and half-open mouth merely suggest the expression of her kind. If words were issuing from her lips they would hardly take the elegant languor of "Line's bizzay!" They would more probably be, "Say, lissen!" The confusion of bright little ideas in the headdress is to some extent mitigated by the artist, who did not indelicately expose the sales lady's ear. But why didn't he bob her hair?
As the thing stands it is simply one of a thousand versions current on almost any magazine cover, It represents a pretty girl, and is otherwise meaningless. It is beside the point to say that artists of genius are rare. We could afford to wait 44 years for a new silver dollar, We can afford to wait a few years longer in order to discover such artists. We have enjoyed the advantage of their services in the past and we need not despair of finding something worthy of a great nation.
So far as the stuffed eagle part of the design goes, it seems to have been a hastily conceived substitute for the hopelessly silly "broken sword" as first offered. There might be something poetic to be said about a sheathed sword, in present peace conditions, if it were really necessary for a great military power to permit the vulgarity of parading its strength. The eagle is merely conventional, in this case looking ridiculously bigger than the mountain upon which it is sitting, and basking in the rays of light from below, presumably from a street lamp or a motor headlight.