July 09, 2012
Liberty Nickel
by Kevin S. Baldwin
When I first moved to a small town in the midwest in the summer of 1999, I walked downtown to check out and support the local businesses. I honestly cannot remember what I bought, but I do remember that the change the cashier made for that first purchase included a very worn 1907 Liberty Head nickel. I had never seen one before! It was one of those "Twilight Zone" moments: I could almost hear the repetitive four note musical theme, and half-expected Rod Serling to step out from behind an architectural column, cigarette smoke swirling towards the ceiling, to deliver a pithy introduction: "He thought he was moving to a new place but it was really another time."
My thoughts alternated between delight and horror. What were the odds of this coin showing up during the very first purchase in my new hometown? If rare, was this some kind of auspicious sign? If common, where had I moved to? Did women have the vote? Had news of the repeal of prohibition made it here yet? (I later found out it isn't possible to buy alcohol before 1pm on Sundays). I haven't noticed any coins of similar vintage since, so I guess maybe somebody found it in their attic and put it back into circulation. I tucked it away as a memento and forgot about it.
As it happens, I rediscovered the Liberty Head nickel this week, while rummaging through old some stuff and being that it's less than a week after the Fourth of July, I began wondering when presidents began to replace personifications of concepts on coins, and what other symbolisms they might contain. The Liberty Head nickel's predecessor, the Shield nickel, was struck from 1866 to 1883. Its shield was intended to show the strength of a unified America, (perhaps in the wake of the recently concluded Civil War?). The Liberty Head nickel was struck from 1883 to 1913. Its obverse showed a wreath of corn, cotton, and wheat surrounding a Roman numeral V, for the five cent denomination. Was this paying tribute to a diminishing agricultural sector within a suddenly burgeoning industrial economy? The Buffalo or Indian Head nickel was struck from 1913 to 1938: Recognition of a bygone frontier and way of life?
The Jefferson nickel, with Monticello on the obverse, has been in continuous production since 1938. Jefferson was of course one of the founding fathers and a champion of the yeoman farmer, and a nation of decentralized wealth and power. Today, we live in a country much more like the one Alexander Hamilton envisioned, with a centralized banking system, and concentrated wealth and power (Reece 2009). I wonder what the next incarnation of the nickel will display?
Reference
Erik Reece. 2009. An American Gospel: On Family, History, and the Kingdom of God. Riverhead Books. New York.
Posted by ksbaldwin at 12:05 AM | Permalink
Comments
Cool post. Interesting you associate the finding of an unusual coin with the Twilight Zone as I, too, have had a similar experience, dating to 1968, when I was walking (likely at a brisk pace to catch some of Dark Shadows) home from school (first grade) and the shortcut I took brought me through a creepy allley that was paved with asphalt millings and it was there that I found a Canadian penny. I was thrilled, to put it mildly, and this experience has stuck with me for all these years. I haven't found anything as cool as your liberty head nickel but I still check my change on the odd chance it will contain a silver dime or silver quarter. Every couple of years or so one of those will turn up. My parents hoarded silver coins just before the switch in the 1960s and still have pails of them locked away. The SyFy channel just ran its annual TZ marathon on the Fourth and, as always, when I tuned in to catch an episode or two I thought of that coin and that alley from the long ago. It was also in that alley where a school friend of mine told me that the Beatles had broken up! Here's a link to a coin most people don't seem to know about: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobo_nickel
Posted by: Peter | Jul 9, 2012 7:16:17 PM
Rushing home to watch Dark Shadows; now that brings back some memories! The evocative nature of coins is interesting. I understand why some people can really get into collecting. Thanks for the link to the Hobo nickels. I had not heard of them!
Posted by: Kevin Baldwin | Jul 9, 2012 9:29:09 PM
The obverse side of a coin is the front or "heads" side. The "tails" side is called the reverse.
(Lingering pedantry from over 40 years of collecting coins.)
Posted by: Jim Russell | Jul 11, 2012 12:22:16 AM
Thanks for the correction!
Posted by: Kevin Baldwin | Jul 11, 2012 8:35:01 AM
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