![]() coins, supplanting the serene, sedate 19th-century portraits that preceded them. Within the previous decade, exciting new designs had debuted on six different U.S. Major changes were taking place in United States coinage, too. ![]() domestic tranquility to foreign entanglement. It was a time of transition: from horse and buggy to horseless carriage. The year was 1916, and America was a nation in ferment. Mack Sennett’s Keystone Kops were making millions laugh in the nation’s movie houses, while New York’s Wally Pipp was home-run king in baseball’s American League. Weinman’s beautiful motif was selected for the obverse and continues to grace the silver eagle to this day.Thomas Woodrow Wilson narrowly won re-election as 28th president of the United States, campaigning on the slogan, “He kept us out of war!” Within a few months, American troops would be heading for Europe after all. However, the design would return in 1986 when the United States silver eagle program began. The “Walker” was one of the last designs to be retired, largely due to its popularity and beauty. The US Mint was slowly phasing out the portraits of Liberty in favor of famous Americans. The Walking Liberty Half Dollar would be produced until 1948, when it was replaced by the Franklin half dollar. Exasperated, the US Mint eventually came to accept this imperfection and released millions of coins with a weak strike. In particular, the central portion of the obverse often came out flat and incompletely struck. Even after making these adjustments, the format proved difficult to strike. The core visual elements were retained, but Barber lowered the relief, moved a few items and changed the rim. He felt that Weinman and the Commission totally ignored practicalities they created a design that was virtually impossible to execute in reality.Įventually, Charles Barber was given some leash to modify Weinman’s half dollar design. Secondly, he had some legitimate concerns as to how well the coin could be mass-produced. As best historians can tell, Barber wasn’t even given an opportunity to submit a proposal. First, he was still bitter from having been excluded from the redesign process. All parties involved in the redesign process-except Charles Barber-were extremely enthusiastic about Weinman’s proposal.īarber was highly critical of Weinman’s design for two reasons. Every facet of the design, from the leaves on the branches to the eagle’s feathers, was executed with tremendous precision. The reverse featured a perched eagle engraved in exquisite detail. The obverse displayed a figure emblematic of Liberty, wearing the American flag and striding towards the sun. Weinman’s submission for the half dollar was stunning. For the silver denominations, the Commission solicited design entries from Adolph Weinman, Herman MacNeil and Albin Polasek. Then in 19, the penny and nickel were both revamped by outside artists. This was not without precedent the gold denominations were successfully designed by outside sculptors in 19. Mint employees wanted a simple design that was easy to strike in mass quantities, but the Commission was tired of the staid, uninspiring images that adorned America’s coins for decades.Įventually the Commission declared that outside artists should be brought in to submit proposals. The Commission and US Mint staff were soon at odds with each other the former group was mostly concerned with aesthetics while the latter was focused on logistics and ease of production. Then, the two men met with the US Commission of Fine Arts to discuss the look of the new silver coins. Woolley first consulted with Mint engraver Charles Barber, whose design first appeared on the dime, quarter and half dollar in 1892. With that in mind, he began work on revamping the silver denominations in 1915, as they would be hitting the 25-year mark in 1917. ![]() He believed, incorrectly, that he was required to change designs every 25 years. However, US Mint director Robert Woolley misinterpreted the verbiage. In 1890, Congress passed legislation giving the US Mint director the power (with approval of the Treasury Secretary) to redesign coinage designs that were 25 years old. In fact, the Walking Liberty motif was so popular that it was re-introduced in 1986 for the American silver eagle-and is still used for that purpose today. Although the design was difficult to produce, it was extremely well-received by the general public. Adolph Weinman, a renowned sculptor whose motif won over numerous competing submissions, conceived the gorgeous design. The Walking Liberty Half Dollar is widely considered America’s most beautiful silver coin.
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