WASHINGTON, COOLIDGE, TRUMP, LAW AND TRADITION

 

Nearly a century ago, the United States paused its 1920s roar to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the country's birth. There were speeches, a Philadelphia flop of a World's Fair, more speeches and a commemorative coin mostly remembered now as a numismatic misfire.

The 1926 coin featured the long-dead first president, George Washington, beside the very-much-alive current president, Calvin Coolidge, whose appearance broke with American convention not to depict a sitting president on money. The custom was inspired by Washington himself, who was so anti-monarchical he could have coined the phrase "No Kings."

The Washington-Coolidge half-dollar is the only American coin to feature a sitting president. But not for long.

 

The Treasury Department recently announced plans to celebrate the country's 250th anniversary in 2026 with a one-dollar coin depicting President Trump. In a draft rendering, he appears twice, and alone: on the obverse, in a profile partly eclipsing the word LIBERTY; and on the reverse, his fist raised below the words FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT.

The very idea of such a coin reflects the national divide over the Trump presidency. Is depicting the current president on money a pitch-perfect way to celebrate the Declaration of Independence, the world-altering denunciation of royal tyranny? Or is it a tone-deaf overreach with an unabashed "L'état, c'est moi" vibe?

Questions like these have coursed through nearly a quarter-millennium of American coinage history, as the country has sought to stamp reflections of its ideals on flat, round pieces of metal.

Emperors, kings and rulers had appeared on coins for some 2,000 years by the late 18th century, when the daring democratic experiment known as the United States came into being. Its founding fathers worked to create a constitutional republic after having just extricated the colonies from England, where coins depicting the double-chinned bust of King George III jingled a constant reminder of who lorded over whom.

Heeding the first president's aversion to anything hinting of monarchy, Congress passed the Coinage Act of 1792, which stipulated that American coins bear an allegorical depiction of freedom, along with the inscription "Liberty." It did not specifically forbid the use of a president's likeness, but the implication was: No image of any leader, past or present.

"Washington very consciously modeled himself on the Roman leader Cincinnatus, who refused to be a dictator for life and went back to his farm," said Douglas Mudd, the director and curator of the Edward C. Rochette Money Museum in Colorado Springs. "That's the foundation of this idea."

 

The custom was reinforced in the 1860s when Spencer M. Clark, a currency superintendent and subject of a recent sex scandal, had the temerity and vanity to put his own full-bearded likeness on the 5-cent note. Afterward, a furious Congress passed a law stipulating that "no portrait or likeness of any living person hereafter engraved, shall be placed upon any of the bonds, securities, notes, fractional or postal currency of the United States."

The law did not specifically mention coins. Still, no American president was depicted on currency until 1909, when Abraham Lincoln appeared on the penny to honor the 100th anniversary of his birth. He was nearly a half-century dead by then, and a personification of liberty.

In 1926, the misbegotten Washington/Coolidge half-dollar was struck. The coin was meant to symbolize the country's audacious beginnings and prosperous present. Still, Mr. Mudd said, it was, in retrospect, unfortunate.

Living people have occasionally appeared on commemorative American coins. Among them: Carter Glass, a Virginia senator and devout segregationist, who was featured on a 1936 half-dollar recalling the 150th anniversary of the incorporation of Lynchburg, Va.; and Eunice Kennedy Shriver, whose image adorns a 1995 silver dollar celebrating the Special Olympics World Games.

But no sitting president, save Silent Cal.

How posterity would judge an American coin featuring a sitting president remains an open question. But if the Washington/Coolidge coin of 1926 is any measure, the answer is: Not well.

The U.S. Mint struck a million of the half-dollars featuring the first and 30th presidents. Nearly 860,000 of them were returned and melted.

To read the complete article, see:
A Two-Headed Coin That Always Comes Up ‘Trump' (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/09/us/trump-commemorative-coin.html)

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see:
TRUMP COMMEMORATIVE COIN PROPOSED (https://www.coinbooks.org/v28/esylum_v28n40a25.html)
LIVING AMERICANS ON US COINS (https://www.coinbooks.org/v28/esylum_v28n41a24.html)
THE FIRST LIVING PERSON ON A ROMAN COIN (https://www.coinbooks.org/v28/esylum_v28n41a25.html)

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