Coin Design

[leeg]

I've learned to appreciate the efforts of some of the people behind the design's in the early Classic Commemorative series. One of those people is John Howard Benson

 

 

 

who along with Arthur Graham Carey designed the Rhode Island coin. Both were of Newport, Rhode Island.

 

 

The work on the design was done in the old John Stevens Shop in Newport, which has been in continuous existence as a stone-cutting shop since 1705, and in the present building on Thames Street since the Revolution. It was in this shop that Benson, who is an instructor in lettering at the Rhode Island schools of Design, puttered around as a youth and learned letter carving before studying in New York and abroad. It was this same shop that he purchased outright in 1927, carrying on the old traditions, established by the Stevens family, of craftsmanship and beauty in stone cutting.

 

The old John Stevens Shop. Image courtesy of Nicholas Benson, John Howard's grandson.

 

Carey, who also comes of a family long associated with Newport – his grandfather presented the Carey School to the city – is a designer, silversmith and lecturer, and since June of 1935 had been in partnership with Benson.

 

The following notes have been prepared by the designers:

 

The conditions which the designers of the Rhode Island Tercentenary half dollar had to meet were these: The United States Mint required that the coin should have on the obverse an emblem symbolic of Liberty, the words “Liberty,” “In God We Trust” and the date, “1936,” and on the reverse the words “United States of America,” E Pluribus Unum” and “Half Dollar.”

 

The Rhode Island Tercentenary Committee required that these general conditions should be so developed and amplified as to make the coins a fitting memorial of the foundation of the first settlement at Providence in 1636.

 

The lettering and symbols were therefore extended thus:

 

Obverse, the words “Liberty,” “In God We Trust,” 1636,” “1936,” and “Rhode Island,” with the welcome of Roger Williams by the Indian at Slate Rock as emblematic of Liberty.

 

Reverse, the words “United States of America,” “E Pluribus Unum,” “Half Dollar” and “Hope,” with the shield of Rhode Island and a mantling as emblematic of the relationship between State and Union.

 

It was decided to deal with the considerable amount of lettering this necessitated by disposing most of it in circular bands framing the emblems. This made possible the utilization of the decorative value of the lettering, at the same time keeping it large enough to be perfectly legible. It was felt that a usual solution of this difficulty, which makes the required legends so small as to be almost illegible and quite without value as decoration, was not a proper one.

 

The arrival of Williams at the site of Providence seemed and excellent symbol of Liberty, and also suitable to the occasion, as it is the device of the modern seal and arms of the city of Providence. The gesture of the Indian is the sign for “good” in the Indian sign language, the hand extended palm down, while that of Williams, the raised hand, is the white man’s customary salutation of friendship. Behind the Indian stands a plant of Indian corn, symbolic of the native contribution to the new American civilization, and one particular characteristic of Rhode Island, while Williams carries in his hand the Bible, as symbolic of the European contribution. Behind both rises the sun of Religious Liberty, for the first time established on this continent.

 

2nd & 3rd generation Benson's. Honored designer's in their own right.

 

On the reverse the shield bearing the anchor of hope and the ribbon above it bearing the word “Hope,” stand for the authority of the State while behind them the mantling bearing the motto “E Pluribus Unum” stands for the authority of the nation. This motto is required by the mint regulations, but the mantling was added to the shield largely to give the motto greater significance.

 

The technical part of the problem the designers felt to be of more difficulty. They believed that the generally conceded greater beauty of ancient over modern coins is the result not of a superior design power in the older artists but in their use of a more rational method. The designers made a considerable study of ancient and modern methods of coin production, as a result of which they came to the conclusion that the art of die sinking is essentially a part of the art of carving rather than of the art of modeling.

 

It is a fact that coins are struck from steel dies, and these dies must still be engraved or carved, whether by an elaborate mechanical process or by a simple manual one. The thinking out of the design should therefore be accomplished in a technique as like as possible to that of the engraver of dies. Although the designs were required to be submitted to the mint in the form of eight-inch diameter plaster models, the designers in preparing these models followed as far as possible a purely glyptic technique. In addition, almost all this carving was done in intaglio, and with tools as much larger that steel engravers’ burins as eight inches is larger that the diameter of a half dollar.

 

The designers believed further that many coins are less perfect that they might be because of the inattention of the artist to the qualities and limitations of his ultimate material. A texture which is very pleasing in clay or in plaster may be one which when duplicated in silver will not bring out the full beauty of that metal. The designers tried to keep in mind the production, no so much of a plaster relief, as of one which when reproduced in silver would give a pleasing pattern in black and white, the white parts being those exposed to wear, and the black parts those protected from it and therefore subject to “oxidation.” They gave considerable attention to the interrelation of the exposed and protected fields, and to a defining and simplifying of the forms limiting them.

 

These are the conditions within which the designers of the coin worked and the principles with which they tried to meet those conditions. To what extent they have been successful can only be judged when the coins have actually been struck.

 

Information presented above courtesy of The Numismatist, February, 1936.

 

Models courtesy of The Commission of Fine Arts.

 

[RWB]

Excellent informatioin!

[Kurtdog]

Excellent informatioin!

It's also a rather revealing glimpse I think generally-speaking into the practical limitations the various artists along the way face when they endeavor to set their artistic expressions to the form of coins. I hope that makes sense.

[physics-fan3.14]

Great article as always, Leeg!

[halfpint]

 

...very enlightening! great read! (thumbs u

[leeg]

Thanks guys!

 

I have a great mentor.

 

Kurtdog brings up a great point I think.

 

Here is a little more around how John Howard Benson feels about Coin Design:

 

Coins may be thought of as things to be collected, or they may be thought of as things to be made. This paper deals with coins considered as things to be made, that is, from the point of view of the practical artist.

 

It seems a generally accepted opinion that the majority of ancient coins are more beautiful than the majority of modern ones. How is this explained? Is it that modern coin designers do not try to make their work beautiful? No. It is probable that they try for beauty much harder than did their predecessors. Is it that modern men are potentially inferior as artists to ancient men? We see no reason to accept this pessimistic view. Is it that the modern designer must conform to certain mechanical conditions unknown to the ancients, such as that his coins must be perfectly round, much stack, etc.? Again, no. Such conditions, if intelligently accepted, are only the limits within which any artist must do his work, and such conditions are no more to be made an excuse for bad coins than the fact that the poet is limited to fourteen lines can be made an excuse for a bad sonnet.

 

We believe that the answer is much simpler than any of these. It is that the majority of designers of coins have not intelligently studied their job. Coins are struck from dies. Dies are made by the art of the die sinker. Every art differs from every other art. Die-sinking differs from every other art. Knowledge of this art is only gained from a study and practice of it, not from the study and practice of other arts, even though these may be in some ways similar.

 

Our insuccess has come about through the dividing up of the art of making coins between two men, or sets of men, when the whole process should be controlled by a single mind. The formal part of the problem is taken care of by “artists” who know nothing, and often apparently desire to know nothing, about technique. And the technical part of the problem is taken care of by technicians who have no formal training – cannot, or think they cannot, design. The two men do not know enough of each other’s problems to be able to work together in harmony, however much they may desire to do so. The difficulty is that the artist has been cut in two, as it were, and that the two half-artists, one interested and instructed only in form, and the other only in technique, are trying to do the work of a single integrated man. The difficulty can be solved either by educating the technician formally, or by educating the designer technically.

 

 

Great stuff right.