[i]Mister[/i] Liberty

[villa66]

I was explaining, elsewhere on the forum, why I found Swiss coins so appealing: the wreath-work is superior, and the allegories have a particular pull as well. (When I first encountered Swiss coins, American circulating coinage was shedding its last allegorical Liberties—the Winged Liberty dime, Standing Liberty quarter, and Walking Liberty half—and I hated that.)

But even as I was writing that, I realized it wasn’t technically accurate, not where the subject of “American allegorical Liberties” is concerned.

It isn’t often mentioned, but American coins do not picture Lincoln, Jefferson, Roosevelt, Washington and Kennedy.

Instead, to comply with the 1792 law that determined the devices to be used on our coinage, American coins bear the allegorical portrait of “Liberty,” in the guise of Lincoln, Jefferson, Roosevelt, Washington and Kennedy.

An artful, but fundamentally dishonest dodge….

v.