This century’s worth of sameness underlines an important postscript to one of Americans’ favorite conceits, that is, that theirs is a relatively young country. It is a relatively young country, but it’s a very old state.
And so here is old Ben Franklin—on the half-dollar since 1948—the last regular issue U.S. coin to lose its allegorical Lady Liberty. But of course; it was the early postwar, and America had arrived. Lincoln on the cent, Jefferson on the nickel, Roosevelt on the dime and Washington on the quarter. Gone was the aspirational Liberty--the United States had a history of its own to lean on.
1953. Eisenhower had become president and the Korean “Conflict” would end. It was time for Americans to get down to the real business of the 1950s and early 1960s—raising the children of the postwar “Baby Boom.”
That decade of 1953-1963…generally speaking, was an especially great time to have been an American kid.
For adult and near-adult men and boys, however, there were some real dilemmas. One of those tough choices—before my time, luckily—was the fact that this 1953d half-dollar would have bought a newsstand copy of one of the new magazines introduced that year: Playboy, with Marilyn Monroe on its cover, and inside.
So what’ll it be? Old Ben, saved for a rainy day, or the young Marilyn, naked? Let me see now...
v.
v.
