ROOSEVELT'S FILTHY LUCRE

President Theodore Roosevelt was a man of many interests, and he micromanaged much of the federal government from picking out bayonets for the Army to critiquing coin design. Two of the gold* pieces--the eagle ($10) and double eagle ($20)--produced during his Presidency were designed by noted sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, and the double eagle especially is generally recognized as probably the most beautiful coin ever made in the United States. However, Roosevelt also authorized, against the wishes of the mint officials, a new design for the $2.50 and $5.00 gold coins.

One of Roosevelt's close buds, William Sturgis Bigelow, was intrigued by the incuse relief works of art of ancient Egypt and suggested that the new coins be also incuse--i.e., the lettering and design be lower than the surface of the coin instead of raised, as is the normal practice. Bigelow recommended that his highly-regarded sculptor friend, Bela Lyon Pratt, be awarded the commission. Pratt, using for the first time in coinage history a genuine native American as a model (the native American on the earlier-designed Indian head penny was actually a young white girl wearing a headdress), came up with a design for both the $2.50 and $5.00 pieces featuring an Indian chief on the obverse and a walking American eagle on the reverse--all done in incuse. 

Not everyone was happy about the results. A noted Philadelphia numismatist wrote to Roosevelt and complained that the Indian was emaciated, that the incuse coins did not stack properly, that the eagle was "European," that the coins could be easily counterfeited, and most serious of all, that the incuse design would collect bacteria and promote disease. Notwithstanding these objections, the coins remained in production (although not for every year) from 1908 through 1929.

And Bigelow, the man who advocated the purportedly filthy, germy design? He was a prominent physician.

For more information about the Pratt-Bigelow gold coins, click here.

*Many decades ago, American money was actually made of precious metals and had value above and beyond the feeble hope that the fiscal policies of the United States were sound.

By US Mint (coin), National Numismatic Collection
 (photograph by Jaclyn Nash) [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons