I seldom get change, and I long ago deleted the Currency ‘N’ You feed from my RSS reader, so I’m behind on this, but I must ask: was there something wrong with the Lincoln Memorial?
Did they lose the carving template? Have to replace the stamp heads at the mint?
Because, surely, one of the greatest monuments a society has to offer wasn’t found unworthy of including on our smallest monetary unit.
Lincoln, himself, seems a bit different. On this particular penny it looks as though he shaved his cheeks, but maintains a goatee. Some of the detail could be polished down, though, so let’s give that a pass. But the Memorial? The Presidential $1 Coin Act of 2005 does us a disservice here. Marian Anderson, Martin Luther King Jr., Richard Nixon meeting the protestors, a scene for every movie that is set in Washington D.C. Best of all: did you know you can see Lincoln’s statue inside the Memorial on the penny?
No doubt the intention was to give people some reason to be excited about the currency again. (Having some always makes people enthusiastic.) Change is good, people are fickle and get bored. Sure. But, this Captain America castoff?
Seems a lot of people have this view. There are 141 comments there, and four people admitting liking the new shield theme. (A diluted version of the British pound’s redesign.) Not a good percentage, but since no one has any money …
I’ve yet to see any of the 2009 pennies. I want to like them, but everything Fast Company says about them is true:
In honor of Lincoln’s 200th birthday, the penny fell victim to an image series of four cartoony tableaus of Lincoln’s life: his famously non-descript log cabin; a hilariously buff, superhero Lincoln reading on a log; a disproportionately statuesque Lincoln standing in front of the Illinois Capitol Building (which everyone will mistake as the U.S. Capitol); and finally the U.S. Capitol Building itself, bizarrely under construction. As a set, the coins look nothing like each other–“United States of America” appears in different type sizes; “One Cent” in different sizes and arrangements–and individually, they make no sense as a timeline of Lincoln’s life.
After reading that I went through all my coins, just to be sure I didn’t have any of those offending Lincolns. Lots of the old Memorial coins, about two dollars worth, there are all of the state quarters and, somehow, 42 varieties of nickels.
Dimes will be next, then. Maybe they can sell them out to sponsorships. Now there’s an economic stimulus plan no one has considered.
Hey, buddy, can you spare a Google?
Added a Google+ button to the top of the page, moved around the icons and so on. Come visit! Catch up on Twitter. There’ll be something on Facebook. I’m everywhere!
