THE PROPOSED TRUMP GOLD COIN

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V29 2026 INDEX E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 29, Number 12, 2026, Article 24

The Washington Post also weighed in with an article about the design of the proposed Trump gold coin. They didn't like it. -Editor

The making of a coin is like the making of a successful political campaign: The artist must clarify and concentrate a big idea into a symbol or slogan, so simple and telling that even the distracted eye can absorb it in a glance.

It's all about reduction, condensation and distillation. Politicians may get only a few minutes of genuinely undivided attention from their voters, while coin designers must create something iconic on a canvas the size of a thumbnail.

"With coin design, less is more," said Caroline Turco, curator at the American Numismatic Association's Money Museum in Colorado Springs. And coinage, she added, is one of the oldest and most effective forms of political messaging, or propaganda.

On Thursday, the Trump administration won approval for an unprecedented coin design from the Commission of Fine Arts, the advisory panel founded in 1910 that evaluates the aesthetic merit of new federal architecture, landscaping and the design of our money, medals and other commemorative works.

The design of the coin, though not beautiful, is perfectly clear in its message. And the message is chilling.

The Trump gold coin would be issued under the U.S. Mint's authority to create gold coins and silver medals without explicit congressional authorization. But its use of a portrait of the 47th president is an extraordinary break with centuries of democratic aversion to depicting living presidents on the nation's money.

On several occasions when Congress has authorized a particular series of coins, such as ones honoring the national parks, it has made explicit a prohibition against the use of images of living people or presidents. Experts in the history of U.S. currency can cite only one example of a coin bearing the image of a living president. That was in 1926 when the profile of Calvin Coolidge was placed next to and decorously behind that of George Washington on a sesquicentennial commemorative half dollar.

"People cite that as a precedent, but it only happened that one time, and it was unpopular," said a member of the Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak for the group, established in 2003 to advise the secretary of the Treasury on the design and iconography of new coins. "A lot of them were returned and melted down."

But Trump proposed honoring himself on at least two coins, a circulating one-dollar piece that was reviewed by the Commission on Fine Arts in January and the commemorative gold coin that was approved Thursday. The administration has claimed that there are loopholes in the law governing the dollar coin, despite a long history of congressional attempts to prevent honoring presidents on money while they are alive, and an even longer history of American cultural aversion to the concept, dating back to George Washington.

"When Washington was approached about it," Turco noted, "he said that we literally fought a war against monarchy, and only monarchs put their faces on coins."

Legal or not, the design of the new gold coin suggests a troubling evolution in the once-freewheeling iconography of Donald Trump — which includes presidential portraits, collectible coins offered for sale by Trump's private organization, digital trading cards, banners on buildings, Trump-branded T-shirts and gold golf club covers, as well the inexhaustible production of memes and images from his social media team. More than a year into his second term, Trump is settling on recurring themes of resolution, anger and determination over his earlier displays that referenced personal vitality, competence, vision and sometimes even humor or irony.

The obverse of the coin shows the president facing the viewer, slightly bent over with his fists resting on a what looks like a narrow table or wide railing. The reverse shows an American eagle bearing neither the usual arrows and olive branch that symbolize war and peace but the wooden yoke of the Liberty Bell — a bit like an aggressive seagull making off with your hot dog.

The New York Times also weighed in, with comments from the Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee (CCAC). -Editor

The Commission of Fine Arts had already recommended in January designs for two smaller coins showing a close-up of Mr. Trump's face on one side and a heraldic eagle on the reverse. One would be a $1 circulating coin, while the other would be a collectible made from an ounce of 24-karat gold and marked with a face value of $250. Based on that recommendation, Mr. Bessent earlier this month approved moving forward, and the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia has already produced prototypes, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive issue.

Last month the Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee, which is statutorily required to review the themes and designs of coins, declined to review the proposed Trump gold coin — shortly after also declining to review a Trump one-dollar coin being proposed as part of the semiquincentennial celebrations, and featuring the sitting president in profile.

The U.S. treasurer, Brandon Beach, said in a statement on Thursday that the coin advisory committee "had multiple reasonable opportunities to review the proposed designs," but "expressly declined."

"Accordingly, the Mint's statutory obligation to seek CCAC review has been fulfilled," Mr. Beach said — something that the coin advisory committee's chairman, Donald Scarinci, disputed.

"If the Mint makes these coins without the review of the CCAC, the coins are illegal," Mr. Scarinci said. But he acknowledged that there was no way that the committee would review these proposed Trump coins anyway.

"Because this is what kings and dictators do and there's no getting around that," Mr. Scarinci said. "This is a democracy, not a monarchy, not a dictatorship. And democracies do not put their elected leaders on coins."

These are interesting times for the CCAC. -Editor

In a phone conversation on Tuesday, Scarinci explained how the February 24th meeting was immediately contentious, and the subsequent sharp questioning of Mint legal counsel Greg Weinman by CCAC board member Kellen Hoard added to the seriousness.

"Over the last several months, the committee has been faced with a number of challenges unprecedented in its history," Hoard began. "These challenges have resulted in a lack of legal, procedural, and operational clarity, which directly impacted the ability of the committee and its members to fulfill their responsibilities in the years to come."

Hoard read aloud an email he sent to Mint officials in December letting them know he believed the selections of the American 250 quarter designs—ones that do not feature Trump's name or face, but images of American themes—were made "in violation of the law" because they were never okayed by his committee. Hoard never received a reply to his email, and despite his salient objections, the Mint has since gone ahead with producing the quarters anyway.

The ultimate design discretion for the Trump gold coin lies with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. As opposed to commemorative coins with actual denominations that require Congressional approval, the gold coin is discretionary, meaning the secretary can authorize it on his own without CCAC review. Still though, there was something unique about this discretionary coin: Mint representatives said the idea for the gold coin came from "outside the agency." That "has never happened before in my 20 years there," Scarinci told me.

Commemorative gold coins are not unheard of. Right now you can purchase one with an image of Wonder Woman, part of the Mint's Comic Art Coin & Medal Collection. The Wonder Woman coin retails for $4,110. It's unclear if it's produced how much the Trump gold coin will be sold for, but Scarinci explained the price will include a premium over the price of gold, which right now is $5,000 an ounce.

Thanks to Tom Kays, Paul Horner, Dick Hanscom and others for passing along articles. -Editor