The E-Sylum v26n53 December 31, 2023

The E-Sylum esylum at binhost.com
Sun Dec 31 18:13:11 PST 2023 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The E-Sylum
  
  An electronic publication of
  The Numismatic Bibliomania Society


Volume 26, Number 53, December 31, 2023
** WAYNE'S WORDS: THE E-SYLUM DECEMBER 31, 2023 <#a01>
** NEW BOOK: AMERICA’S PAPER MONEY <#a02>
** JOHN B. LOVE (1936-2023) <#a03>
** JOHN P. BURNHAM (1940-2023) <#a04>
** NNP ADDS SMITH’S NUMISMATIC ROGUES GALLERY <#a05>
** VIDEO: FLORIDA STATE TREASURE COLLECTION <#a06>
** MORE ON BOY BISHOPS' CHURCH TOKENS <#a07>
** REV. MUHLENBERG AND HIS MEDAL <#a08>
** MORE ON JENNY LIND AND TAYLOR SWIFT  <#a09>
** NOTES FROM E-SYLUM READERS: DECEMBER 31, 2023 <#a10>
** REVIEW: BANK OF CANADA MUSEUM <#a11>
** VOCABULARY TERMS: OVERSTRIKE, OVERSTRUCK <#a12>
** JOHN PAUL BUTLER (1920-1982) <#a13>
** NUMISMATIC RESEARCH REQUESTS SOUGHT <#a14>
** TOM CALDWELL INTERVIEW, PART ONE <#a15>
** WORLD BANKNOTE AUCTIONS: 2023 REVIEW <#a16>
** NUMISMATIC NUGGETS: DECEMBER 31, 2023 <#a17>
** DATES ON ANCIENT COINS <#a18>
** 1965 SILVER ROOSEVELT DIME FIND <#a19>
** 1983 COPPER LINCOLN CENT  <#a20>
** STACK’S BOWERS OFFERS TRIAL OF THE PYX COINS <#a21>
** 2024 ROYAL MINT COMMEMORATIVE COINS <#a22>
** 18TH CENTURY GERMAN CYPHER WHEEL <#a23>
** SOUTHERN STATES BANKNOTE ALBUM <#a24>
** BARTLETT, TEXAS BANK RENOVATION <#a25>
** PUZZLE PURISTS DECAMP TO A CASTLE <#a26>
** LOOSE CHANGE: DECEMBER 31, 2023 <#a27>
** THE TANGBUNIA BANK OF VANUATU <#a28>






  

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Content presented in The E-Sylum  is not necessarily researched or independently fact-checked, and views expressed do not necessarily represent those of the Numismatic Bibliomania Society.




WAYNE'S WORDS: THE E-SYLUM DECEMBER 31, 2023





Thank you for reading The E-Sylum. If you enjoy it, please send me the email addresses of friends you think may enjoy it as well and I'll send them a subscription. Contact me at whomren at gmail.com anytime regarding your subscription, or questions, comments or suggestions about our content. 



As noted earlier, this issue may arrive late because of the holiday.
Happy New Year!



This week we open with two new books, two obituaries, 
updates from the Newman Numismatic Portal, notes from readers, and more.



Other topics this week include Numismatic Rogues, Boy Bishops, Rev. William Augustus Muhlenberg, Jenny Lind, the Bank of Canada Museum, dates on ancient coins, off-metal errors, the Trial of the Pyx, a bank building renovation, and the Tangbunia Bank of Vanuatu.



To learn more about America’s paper money, the Florida State Treasure Collection,  commemorative banknotes, tactile coin exhibits,  the Ralph Foster Museum,  Tom Caldwell of Northeast Numismatics, the rarity found in a Coinstar machine, the World’s Richest Poor Man, and the World's Weirdest Bank, read on. Have a great week, everyone!



Wayne Homren 
Editor, The E-Sylum




 

Image of the week


 
   

 


 














NEW BOOK: AMERICA’S PAPER MONEY



The Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press has published a free  384-page electronic book by William L. Pressly called
America’s Paper Money: A Canvas for an Emerging Nation.
Check it out - it's an important new look at the intersection of numismatics and art history.



Found via News & Notes from the Society of Paper Money Collectors (Volume IX, Number 28,   December 26, 2023)
-Editor




America’s Paper Money: A Canvas for an Emerging Nation

William L. Pressly





The Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1690 became the first government in the Western world to print paper money, the imagery for which initiated an indigenous American art form of remarkable dynamism and originality. After the Revolutionary War, disillusioned by how quickly its promiscuous printing of Continental currency had led to hyperinflation, the U.S. government left it to private institutions such as state-chartered banks to carry on this artistic American tradition. Adorned with a vast variety of images, bank notes soon became the fledgling country’s primary currency. With pressures of the Civil War, the federal government in 1861 began taking charge of the paper-money supply by creating a national currency; simultaneously, the Confederate States of America was creating a competing self-image, making heavy use of bank-note vignettes. Later, collaboration between government engravers and well-known artists on the 1896 Silver Certificates marked the apex of U.S. government
  currency design. For two centuries, American creativity and technical ingenuity resulted in imagery on paper money that helped create and enhance the nation’s imagined self.



Publication Date: December 20, 2023



Availability: Electronically







Here's an excerpt from the book's Preface.
-Editor




I have written this book to open a more fruitful dialogue between the disciplines 
of art history and numismatics as applied to American paper money. The numismatic literature has undertaken the Herculean task of documenting this extremely 
large body of material. Eric Newman’s publications on Continental and Colonial 
currency are exemplary, and multiple catalogers have categorized the national 
currencies produced, beginning in 1861, by the federal government of the United 
States of America and by the Confederate States of America. Between these two 
eras, however, documenting the vast quantity of bank notes has proved to be a 
more daunting challenge. James A. Haxby made an impressive beginning, and 
Q. David Bowers is pursuing an even more thorough state-by-state catalog of 
bank notes and related currency. Other authors, such as Richard Doty, Bob McCabe, Mark D. Tomasko, and Heinz Tschachler, have provided helpful insights 
into issues involving the images used by banknote engravers, including the technology of bank-note production. In addition, digitization is transforming access 
to this vast material. Databases, such as the Newman Numismatic Portal at Washington University in St. Louis, are putting illustrations of paper money, along with 
the critical literature, at one’s fingertips. All this research provides an indispensable foundation for further exploration.


 






One of the deficiencies of numismatic writers that this book hopes to correct 
is the lack of knowledge of the artistic context in which these works were created. 
Ignorance of academic art, with its long tradition of complex iconographies and 
its mixture of allegorical figures with historical ones, has sometimes led to the 
misidentification of a vignette’s subject.  The origins of whole genres of subject matter have at times escaped 
notice. Images of children performing adult tasks are not American drolleries, as 
some commentators would have it, but are taken from the conventions of rococo 
art. Some researchers of American paper money, such as John A. Muscalus, have 
been remarkably adept at locating old-master and contemporary sources for images appearing on currency, but they rarely go beyond the simple identification of 
a source to assess the significance of such borrowings or how the original design 
might have changed in its adaptation to this new context.



On the other side of the ledger, one might ask why so few art historians, with 
the notable exception of Jennifer Roberts, have held back from exploring in depth 
American paper money. One reason is the concern that notes, the product of 
commercial printing, are viewed as exemplars of skilled craftsmanship rather 
than as original works of art. In this regard, paper money is seen as falling more within the purview of visual culture than art history. This book offers arguments 
to the contrary. It attempts to open to art historians and the public an area of 
American art that has been largely overlooked and to encourage numismatists to 
see this material in new ways.


 






I began collecting American paper money when I was in the fifth grade, and I 
often think this interest had an influence on my decision to become an art historian. Throughout my career, my area of study has been primarily eighteenth- and 
nineteenth-century European art, but I am glad now to be able to give something 
back to the field that first engaged my interest. While writing this book, my constant mantra has been “ars longa, vita brevis” (art is long, life is short). This Latin 
phrase, first coined by Hippocrates in Greek, is often misinterpreted to mean that 
while one’s life is fleeting, one’s work will live on long after he or she has died. Instead, it means that one lifetime is too short a span in which to master an art. In 
my case, this is all too painfully true, but I am delighted to have been able to make 
a beginning.



To read the complete book, see: 


America’s Paper Money: A Canvas for an Emerging Nation

(https://scholarlypress.si.edu/store/all/americas-paper-money-a-canvas-for-an-emerging-nation/)

 





 







JOHN B. LOVE (1936-2023)



Silver dollar specialist John B. Love passed away on December 19th.  He was born June 6, 1936.
-Editor






John Bracy Love, nationally known numismatist, went to meet his Lord on December 19, 2023. He was at his home in Whitefish, Montana surrounded by all his loved ones. In his last years, John was blind and had many health problems, but he stayed positive and strong, seldom complaining unless you interrupted his Grizzly game.



 John was born to Virgil and Florence Bracy Love on June 6, 1936, in Carbondale, Illinois. As a small child the family moved to Burbank, California where Virgil went to work for Columbia movie studios. John graduated from John Burroughs High School in Burbank, and then went to Los Angeles Valley Junior College on a football scholarship. His team was successful, and they went on to win the championship for their football league in 1955. After graduating, John was offered a football scholarship to the University of Montana. While at the U of M, John met his wife of 63 years, Karla Kay Kluth. The couple were married in 1960. Shortly after they married, they moved to Cut Bank, MT where John managed the Orpheum Theater Company for his mother-in-law. They lived in Cut Bank for over 50 years and raised their daughter, Lisette Lee Love, and son, John Byron Love, there.






During the time John worked at the theater, silver was the currency people used and he soon got interested in silver dollars. That was the beginning of his career in the coin business. He started Record Coin in 1962. At the same time, he hired Diane Biegler as his secretary and she is still there today. Throughout his career he was a member of the Professional Numismatists Guild (PNG), a lifetime member of the American Numismatic Association (ANA), honored with the National Silver Dollar Roundtable Lifetime Achievement award in 1990, and inducted into the Professional Coin Grading Services (PCGS) Coin Dealer Hall of Fame in 2011. He loved to go to work and was still working up until the time of his death. In addition to his coin business, he and Roy Roper of Twin Falls, Idaho, along with Theo Bartschi and Byron Kluth started Interstate Amusement in 1967 in Twin Falls, which grew to 25 movie screens. They sold the theaters in 2014.



 John loved animals, horses in particular, and soon he started running racehorses. His horse trainer was Tommy Roberts, and they raced up and down the West coast, using jockeys such as Gary Stevens, Johnny Longden, and Will Shoemaker. In the 1980’s, John was the leading owner in races won in the nation. He also had a horse named Blue Rimrock, which was voted best claiming horse nationwide in 1985.



To read the complete obituary, see: 


John Love

(https://www.asperfh.com/obituaries/john-love)

 


Here's some additional information from CoinWeek.
-Editor




Love, along with fellow Morgan dollar specialist Wayne Miller, is widely regarded as one of the pioneers of the modern silver dollar market. The two were partners for a short time in the early 2000s.



When the Redfield Hoard of Morgan dollars came to market, John was one of its three major distributors. He handled Morgan dollars by the bag, by the roll, and by the coin. Love was a mentor to PCGS and NGC coin grader Michael “Miles” Standish and is listed as a contributor to Standish’s book Morgan Dollars: America’s Love Affair with a Legendary Coin.



To read the complete article, see: 


Legendary Coin Dealer John B. Love Has Passed Away

(https://coinweek.com/legendary-coin-dealer-john-b-love-has-passed-away/)















JOHN P. BURNHAM (1940-2023)



George Cuhaj and Tony Terranova alerted me to the passing of John P. Burnham on December 16th.
-Editor






Born to George R. Burnham and Kaarin (Maki) Burnham, John began his life of uncommon learning and accomplishment on July 20, 1940 in Portland, Oregon. There, with his beloved parents and sister Kaarin (Burnham) Cargill, John spent near every weekend of his childhood exploring the Columbia River Gorge and the numerous parks along the old highway - picnicking at Wahkeena Falls, tromping through the forest, intrepidly leading adventures up Oneonta Gorge, a lifelong favorite. Innumerable family road trips to Wecoma Beach and San Francisco further fueled the travel and exploration bugs. Those formative years were also the beginning of John’s lifelong passions for trains and for coins and collecting (his first coin, a gift from his mother, a 1912 Liberty Head dime from the Denver Mint).



After graduating, as valedictorian, from Jefferson High in 1958, John attended the University of Oregon where he starred for the University’s College Bowl team before graduating Phi Beta Kappa. John then left his beloved Oregon to attend graduate school at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Connecticut would become his home for the ensuing six decades. After earning his degree (in part paid for by his winnings playing Gin) John joined the faculty at Connecticut College as a professor of economics. At Connecticut College, he met Christina, the love of his life. The couple married in 1967 and would raise four sons together, primarily in their book-filled (oh so very, very book-filled!) and historic home in Old Saybrook.






In addition to teaching at Connecticut College John gave his considerable efforts and talents to many other roles: he served on the Governor’s Council of Economic Advisors of Connecticut; was Curator of the Yale Numismatic Collection for 30+ years; a numismatic consultant to Stack’s/ Coin Galleries in New York; a financial consultant and columnist; director of the Connecticut Central Railroad; President of the Valley Railroad; on the Board of Directors of the Providence and Worcester Railroad; a fellow of the American Numismatic Society and founding member of its Augustus B. Sage Society; chairman of the Waterford, CT Board of Finance; and many more too numerous to list, though he undoubtedly would have liked them to be.



His curious nature always meant there were new and more books being added to the collection, books on near any subject one could imagine (This Was Logging anybody?). Luckily, the many visits to bookstores, be it Powell’s in Portland (on summer trips out west) or the Yale Co-Op, meant a new book for each son to pick out as well. Time was always made in his busy schedule to support his sons...



John’s intellectual curiosity was reflected in his hobbies, of which there were a great many. He loved collecting coins; reading (always a pile of books in various progress); collecting medals; playing chess; collecting paper money; playing cards (gin, cribbage, pinochle); collecting railroadiana; ensuring his children had strong cardio by making them sprint through the labyrinthian New York subway system or risk being left behind; collecting political memorabilia; crosswords; collecting books; dining with friends and family; and, it can’t be stressed enough; collecting.




His entry in the 2009 An Island of Civility: The Centennial History of the New York Numismatic Club reads as follows. George Cuhaj supplied the photo of John at his Coin Galleries cube in the early 1990s.
-Editor








John P. Burnham. Member: 1992-Present
Educated at the University of Oregon and at Yale. Cataloguer for Stack's. Part-time curator of the Yale numismatic collection for nearly thirty years. An avid collector of medals, he led one of the first medals-only auction houses, Collectors Auctions Ltd. He is a member of the ANA, the Russian Numismatic Society, the Medal Collectors of America, Phi Beta Kappa, Delta Chi, the Elizabethan Club and the Mory's Association. He is the former chairman of the Connecticut Central Railroad and the Valley Railroad Company, and served on the board of directors of the Providence and Worcester Railroad Company and the Mutual Shares Corp.






The entry for Collectors Auctions Ltd of Danbury, CT in Martin Gengerke's 2009 American Numismatic Auctions lists sales dated 9/13/1987 through 5/4/1991.
-Editor



   

 

 








Catalog numbers are continued from the Johnson & Jensen series.



After sale number 35 the firm moved to Old Saybrook, CT, and the next catalog was number 8, reflecting the desire of the owner to separate the firm from the Johnson & Jensen catalogs. The Newman Numismatic Portal includes Collectors Auctions as a continuation of the Johnson & Jensen series.





Alan V. Weinberg writes:


"I knew John fairly well when he worked upstairs for Stack's on 57th Street. A quiet and seemingly humble, soft-spoken man, I’d heard he was well connected and accomplished but I had no idea just how prominent he was. He never portrayed himself as being so accomplished.



"I have at least two unique medals in my collection acquired privately from John, after much pleading. One a hand tooled silver 1835 American shooting award, and one a large high quality gold, originally cased, 1840’s completely hand engraved life saving medal from Alabama depicting a paddle wheel afire and sinking.Acquired perhaps 30 yrs ago from John at a very firm non-negotiable $10K. Very high then but I had to have it.
John would not have sold it but for my intense interest."





 




Tuscaloosa Steamship Lifesaving Medal





Great medal!  Amazing work.
Thanks, everyone.
-Editor




To read the complete obituary, see: 


John Printz Burnham

(https://www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/old-saybrook-ct/john-burnham-11588383)







THE BOOK BAZARRE

 KENNETH W. RENDELL  
has traveled the world tracking down, buying, and selling the most significant,
iconic historical letters and documents from the ancient world through the Renaissance to today. Read
about his early start as a rare-coin dealer in the 1950s—and much more—in his thrilling new memoir,
Safeguarding History. Order your copy online (including
at 
Whitman.com
), or call 1-800-546-2995.



 
 



NNP ADDS SMITH’S NUMISMATIC ROGUES GALLERY



The latest addition to the Newman Numismatic Portal is Pete Smith’s Numismatic Rogues Gallery. Project Coordinator Len Augsburger provided the following report.
-Editor



 




Pete Smith’s Numismatic Rogues Gallery Added to NNP



The commercial side of numismatics has a way of attracting ne’er-do-wells, and to be sure academic and museum collections are no less susceptible. Pete Smith’s latest work shines a spotlight on 275 perpetrators of numismatic crimes, compiling the pertinent data in a single reference. In earlier days, dealers published their own lists of individuals not to be trusted, but the explosion of public information in the Internet age allows for a more systematic approach.



Readers are encouraged to contribute suggestions and additions.






Image: Samuel Hudson & Henry Chapman “frauds” list




Note that Pete's book isn't a list of deadbeats who don't pay their bills - a documented conviction is required.  Handy categories include burglary, counterfeiting, drug trafficking, embezzlement, bank fraud, mail fraud, money laundering, murder, pedophilia, Ponzi schemes, fencing stolen property, safe cracking, tax evasion and plain old theft, with special chapters for the Dupont and Fogg Museum heists.  Bank safes, FBI raids, cash hoards, dead bodies, mug shots and prison jumpsuits abound.  But it's not just rogues - their victims appear here, too. Interesting reading.
-Editor


 

Link to Numismatic Rogues Gallery on NNP:


https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/book/634354


 

Link to S. H. & H. Chapman 1906 client list, including “frauds”: 


https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/archivedetail/516023

















VIDEO: FLORIDA STATE TREASURE COLLECTION



The David Lisot Video Library on the Newman Numismatic Portal can be found at:


https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/multimediadetail/522852




We highlight one of his videos each week in The E-Sylum.
Here's one from the 1715 Fleet Society Conference in 2017 about the Florida State Treasure Collection.
-Editor



 







Highlights of the Florida State Treasure Collection



The state of Florida has an extensive collection of artifacts from the countless shipwrecks that have gone down along its coast. See examples of many of the items as well as conservation techniques used to preserve them. Speaker: Jessica Stika. Running time: 44:17.



To watch the complete video, see: 


https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/book/540278






 

 







MORE ON BOY BISHOPS' CHURCH TOKENS



David Powell kindly provided this information on the medieval Boy Bishops and their Christmas tokens. Thank you!
-Editor






There is an excellent paperback on the history of the Boy Bishop tradition in the form of Neil MacKenzie’s “The Medieval Boy Bishops”.



I have written a couple of pages on the subject in my lead token newsletter at LTT_128, pages 2-3  {see

https://thetokensociety.org.uk/ltt/ }, and there are various examples illustrated elsewhere throughout the Leaden Tokens Telegraph {see specifically the display on the back page of LTT_88}, but Gary Oddie knows a lot more about the things than I do.


   

 




 






The Boy Bishop token coinage of East Anglia more
closely approximates to regal money than any other
lead issue, particularly in the early days c.1485-1500
when it was at its finest, and our main purpose, of
course, is to ascertain just what role it fulfilled. Was
it ceremonial money only, or was it used in lieu of
real money and subsequently exchanged like, for example, pickers’ checks?



Perhaps the use of token coinage,
rather than real money, was part of
that control; having said which, we
have no firm evidence for it having
been deployed generally, beyond
the area of East Anglia for which it
is known. Not to say that it wasn’t, of course; maybe some of the
other known ecclesiastical lead and pewter tokens fulfilled the same role without us realising it. However, it is very possible that the use of
tokens was local only to certain cathedrals’ traditions.





As regarding a catalogue, the 1984 article by Mitchiner and Skinner in BNJ54, pages 86-163 {see 

https://www.britnumsoc.org/publicns/bnj-articles-by-year } is the best I know to date; in terms of their type classification, Boy Bishops are types P and R.  However, as with most lead, of the late mediaeval and early modern period, new types are being dug up all the time.



Gary Oddie writes:


"For the so-called Boy Bishop tokens - Daniel Haigh was the first to speculate that the lead tokens with bishop's mitres etc might have been used as part of the feast of St Nicholas (Num Chron, 1843, pp 82-90). The first, and so far only, catalogue of the type was written by Stuart Rigold (Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History. 34(2) pp87-101. 1978, with a couple of later supplements). Michael Mitchiner's catalogues derive from these. 



"There is no documentary evidence for the use of the tokens during the feast of St Nicholas and they were more likely issued by the larger religious establishments as alms or small change. Indeed the cult of St Nicholas was commonplace across Northern Europe and all of England (T. Skambraks; Das Kinderbischofsfest im Mittelalter, 2014), whereas the tokens that fit this type are exclusive to East Angla. When I last looked, the Portable Antiquities Scheme had listed over 500 "Boy Bishop" tokens from East Anglia along with 20 or so outside this area that are all misidentifications.



"Rigold's listing can now be extended to include lead halfpennies and some much larger pieces as well as several new legend types and portrait pieces."






Very interesting! Thanks, everyone.
-Editor




 

The token discussed last week




To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see: 


MEDIEVAL CHURCH CHRISTMAS TOKEN FOUND

(https://www.coinbooks.org/v26/esylum_v26n52a22.html)

 





 







REV. MUHLENBERG AND HIS MEDAL



Author Jim Haas submitted these notes on Rev. William Augustus Muhlenberg and the medal Victor David Brenner designed featuring him.  Thanks!
-Editor



 






My current project of editing a book penned by an artist friend is coming to an end, and my hope is to begin writing another book. The subject will be either a comprehensive history of College Point, NY or how the community experienced WWII. Both are near and dear.



With regard to the former, yesterday I chanced upon two versions of an article about a new medal that was published in the New York Times and The Sun in 1896. The person for whom the medal was struck, Rev. William Augustus Muhlenberg, also gave College Point its name. Here’s the story.






In late summer 1835, Rev. Muhlenberg, great-grandson of the founder of the Lutheran Church in America, purchased a tract of land of about one hundred acres in the township due north of Flushing in Queens, NY, the location commonly called Strattonport. Using his own financial resources and those of a few other equally disposed individuals, his plan was to erect a college there to educate young men for ministry in the Episcopal church. Scheduled to open its doors in 1837, the financial panic that was crippling both the nation and his investors put the project in jeopardy. A much diminished version of the college named for St. Paul, was opened in 1837, but never truly got off the ground. The site on which St. Paul’s College was erected came to be called College Point.



     Muhlenberg went on to spend the majority of his eighty years in ministerial service. During the Civil War years he played a significant role in the building of a hospital in New York City to care for the wounded streaming back from the various theaters of the war. The hospital named for St. Luke, patron of physicians, is still in operation today.  


 






As I’m sure you know, the medal was the work of Victor David Brenner. One hundred bronze copies of the medal were struck for distribution to society members, hospital managers, Bishop Potter and other dignitaries of the Protestant-Episcopal Church. A gold medal was presented to George MacCulloch Miller, president of the hospital and another for Andrew C. Zabriskie, President of the Numismatic and Archaeological Society. Throughout his life Zabriskie, 1853-1916, was a collector of coins and medals, having one of the best collections in the country that included many rare Lincoln medals. He was president of the Society for ten years.




The ANS archives contain a scrapbook of Zabriskie's, with more information on the cornerstone laying ceremonies, as well as the members of the Joint Committee on the Improvement of the United States Coinage.  Who can tell us more about that body?
-Editor




Jim adds:


"Taking a look at the medal it occurred to me to wonder if like MacNeil, who reworked previously used medal designs, did not Brenner harken back to this effort when pondering the Lincoln penny. They are remarkably similar design-wise."





 





 







Well, there are some similarities. Of course, the closest predecessors for the obverse were Brenner's Lincoln plaque designs.  At Jim's suggestion I reached out to Shawn Tew, author of The Rabbit Hole of the 1909 Wheat Cent.
-Editor




Shawn writes:


"In my research with the archives the current Brenner design of the Lincoln Cent was in fact the third one submitted and it was due to the suggestion of President Taft of a Brenner statue in the White House. 
Here are the first two sketches submitted for approval.  But Brenner being an experienced medalist, he designed all of his medals with the same type of elements in similar arrangements which caused issues when it went to produce the smaller scale coinage."




 






Jim adds:


"The 3rd design is a gigantic leap from the first two sketches. From whence the dramatic change? The left-facing walking figure reminds me of the front-facing St. Gaudens. 



"Acknowledged that the Lincoln profile is not the Muhlenberg and the verbiage is not centered on the coin, but the presence of the acanthus frond or maybe wheat sheaf on the right side could have easily been his inspiration for the two sheaves of wheat enclosing he reverse on the Lincoln penny."





For more information on the medal, see: 


Bronze Medal of American Numismatic Society, New York City. 0000.999.6717

(http://numismatics.org/collection/0000.999.6717)


Medallic Art of the American Numismatic Society, 1865–2014

(http://numismatics.org/digitallibrary/ark:/53695/Miller-ANS-Medals)

 

For more information on the Zabriskie scrapbook, see: 


Andrew C. Zabriskie scrapbook, 1893-1894

(http://numismatics.org/archives/ark:/53695/nnan0127)

 

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see: 


THE RABBIT HOLE OF THE 1909 WHEAT CENT

(https://www.coinbooks.org/v26/esylum_v26n30a10.html)


NEW BOOK: THE 1909 LINCOLN WHEAT CENT

(https://www.coinbooks.org/v26/esylum_v26n33a04.html)







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