The Little Rock High Commemorative - ugliest coin of the century thus far?

[pendragon1998]

Here it is. A rectangle with a bunch of feet. The reverse is okay, but the obverse is the ugliest piece of scat I've seen this century.

 

 

 

Actually, come to think of it, I don't like the reverse that much either. Those gates or doors or whatever to the left of the tree make it look like the spillway on a hydroelectric dam.

[hoard]

kind of brings back memories of the kevin bacon movie "Footloose"

[TomB]

The reverse will be quite difficult to produce in an aesthetically pleasing manner using the three-dimensional, albeit flat, canvas that is our coinage. However, the obverse is strikingly uninspired, in my opinion, and could have been, as well as should have been, much more compelling.

[123cents]

What's a matter. You don't like looking a peoples feet?

[WoodenJefferson]

What could the 9 stars be representative of in history?

[DC Dawg]

What could the 9 stars be representative of in history?

It represents the 9 students who helped break the color barrier at Little Rock High School.

 

Sometimes, commemorative coins can help us relive history so we should not forget it. The image is based on a famous photograph of the nine students being escorted into LRHS. Although the full image was released by UPI, only the lower part was included in newspapers throughout the south. Yes, many southern papers clipped the picture as part of the story because they did not want to "acknowledge" the "coloreds" who were part of this.

 

For the history and effect, I think this is ingenous! I would be very interested to see the actual execution. Like the Edison commem, this coin uses a historical image to make its point. Excellent!

 

Scott

[cpm9ball]

What could the 9 stars be representative of in history?

It represents the 9 students who helped break the color barrier at Little Rock High School.

 

If you count them, it looks like there are 9 pairs of feet on the sidewalk.

 

Chris

[DC Dawg]

What could the 9 stars be representative of in history?

It represents the 9 students who helped break the color barrier at Little Rock High School.

 

If you count them, it looks like there are 9 pairs of feet on the sidewalk.

Look more carefully... you will find TEN pairs of feet. The tenth pair belongs to a National Guardsman who escorted the students to the building.

 

Scott

[midwest]

If you count them, it looks like there are 9 pairs of feet on the sidewalk.

Look more carefully... you will find TEN pairs of feet. The tenth pair belongs to a National Guardsman who escorted the students to the building.

 

 

That would actually be a soldier from the 101st Airborne Division.

[gmarguli]

I think this design is awesome. I can almost smell the feet they are so lifelike. I'll be purchasing at least 100 examples of this coin as it's so ugly that it's sure to be one of the lowest mintage commems ever minted.

 

The ugliness of this commem makes the Eunice Shriver/Christopher Columbus commem look stunningly beautiful.

[midwest]

Does anyone have pictures of the other designs that were submitted?

[DC Dawg]

If you count them, it looks like there are 9 pairs of feet on the sidewalk.

Look more carefully... you will find TEN pairs of feet. The tenth pair belongs to a National Guardsman who escorted the students to the building.

 

 

That would actually be a soldier from the 101st Airborne Division.

Sorry... you're right. The governor refused to allow the National Guard to escort the students into the school and President Eisenhower sent the 101st Airborne to enforce the federal order that was the result of Brown v. Board of Ed. ruling by the Supreme Court.

 

I think this is the photo the coin was based on...

 

Scott

[WoodenJefferson]

Hard to believe you'd need an element of the 101st Airborne to escort you in order to change classes...looks like there are more soldiers than there were students.

 

Good history lesson here...very informative thread on our up and coming U.S. coin.

[just-john]

Little Rock High School only in Arkansas whould anybody put Desegregation In Education

2007

Like that was the year = FOOL'S =They show just feet on the coin because who would want their face on it. HILLARY

Plus the Feet Are Going Left which would seem to be out of the school

[Bruceswar]

I for one like the coin on which it stands for. The design in hand might be nice. We shall have to see.

[Zoins]

I think the design would be nicer if it mirrored the picture more and showed all of the people, not just the feet. The rifles really bring back what things were like back then. I'm guessing the rifles won't be put on it due to political reasons. I'd be interested in either a coin or private medal that was more faithful to the photo showing the full people including rifles.

[RWB]

A selection of designs were shown by the commemorative committee at the Denver ANA. An audience member was one of the 9 who were escorted to school, and her input was very helpful to the committee.

 

To be honest, it is difficult to describe the miserable mediocrity of most of the commemorative options. A commemorative should express the event to the highest degree of richness fine art can supply. The mint's job is to then translate this into the finished coin as faithfully as possible. Neither are happening.

[Zoins]

I think modern commems should be high relief. They are NCLT so it's not like they are going to be spent or see wear. It would help make the designs richer IMO. As for the designs themselves, I think what we are seeing is the result of politics.

 

IMO a more classic design would be to have a single student and a single armed solider under an Arkansas flag. This disrupts explicitly showing the 9 but my view is that the old commems tried to have simpler strong images and used more symbolism. They didn't try to put so much on a coin. Perhaps the image can be ringed by 9 stars to symbolize the 9 students.

[TJ'S Coins]

It will be interesting to see how this coin fares in the future on the resale market. Does anyone expect a sellout or anticipate high demand?

 

The Booker T. Washington Commemorative design wasn't too bad but the Washington/Carver Commemorative half is widely considered to be one of the least attractive of early commemorative coinage. Too bad we cannot do a better job honoring African American leaders and important civil right events.

 

I agree with the above comments regarding improvement to all of our commemorative coinage. Low relief just doesn't cut it. Where is the artistic imagination and idealism today?

[gmarguli]

I think the design would be nicer if it mirrored the picture more and showed all of the people, not just the feet.

 

If you show faces then it could be argued that you're putting living people on coins.

[Zoins]

I think the design would be nicer if it mirrored the picture more and showed all of the people, not just the feet.

If you show faces then it could be argued that you're putting living people on coins.

Is it now illegal to put living people on coins? The US has explicitly put living people on coins before. There's also the "Nolan Ryan dollar"

[PerryHall]

I think the design would be nicer if it mirrored the picture more and showed all of the people, not just the feet.

If you show faces then it could be argued that you're putting living people on coins.

Is it now illegal to put living people on coins? The US has explicitly put living people on coins before. There's also the "Nolan Ryan dollar"

 

What about Shriver on the Special Olympics coin? Technically, she was still alive when this coin was minted.

[TomB]

I think the design would be nicer if it mirrored the picture more and showed all of the people, not just the feet.

If you show faces then it could be argued that you're putting living people on coins.

Is it now illegal to put living people on coins? The US has explicitly put living people on coins before. There's also the "Nolan Ryan dollar"

 

What about Shriver on the Special Olympics coin? Technically, she was still alive when this coin was minted.

Perhaps she was technically still alive, but she certainly didn't look it!

[MunkyMan95]

So rather than having a MLK commem, or a Rosa Parks commem, or someone like that, they chose a High School commem?

[Conder101]

They should have used the full figures instead of just the feet. From the image they used it is rather difficult to tell that one of the pairs of feet belongs to an armed US soldier, needed to protect the students and keep the peace. And that was the inportant part of the situation.

 

As the coin is designed you have a full image of the school and just some feet with inscriptions commemorating desegregation in education. If you DIDN'T already know the history behind it, the impression I get from the design is that it is commemorating Little Rock Central High School for leading the way in providing an education to all students reguardless of race. As if it was the school bucking the trend and insisting on accepting both whites and blacks.

 

In this case I also see nothing wrong with the fact thatif they used full figures they would be showing actual living people. This coin commemorates the history of an actual event. The people are PART of that event. If you really don't want to show living that actually took part in the event, wait for the centennial of the event.

[DC Dawg]

Gee, Condor, that is the best reasoned argument against the design other than "it's ugly." I do not agree with you, but I like your reasoning! This way, reasonable people can reasonably disagree.

 

Scott

[Zoins]

If you DIDN'T already know the history behind it, the impression I get from the design is that it is commemorating Little Rock Central High School for leading the way in providing an education to all students reguardless of race. As if it was the school bucking the trend and insisting on accepting both whites and blacks.

I bet Little Rock Central HS would object to anything that shows them in a bad light which may make a full figures design with soldiers a no go from a political perspective. The HS is still around ( lrcentralhigh.org ) and probably doesn't want to highlight the potentially negative aspects of their history. I agree full figures would make the coin much more meaningful from a historical perspective but history may take a back seat to political correctness.

[Robbie-migration]

What could the 9 stars be representative of in history?

It represents the 9 students who helped break the color barrier at Little Rock High School.

 

If you count them, it looks like there are 9 pairs of feet on the sidewalk.

Look more carefully... you will find TEN pairs of feet. The tenth pair belongs to a National Guardsman who escorted the students to the building.

 

Scott

 

you can even see the butt of his weapon.

[pendragon1998]

I just showed the coin design to my non-collector wife. Her response:

 

Her: "Why does it have feet on it?"

 

Me: "Ugh...well it depicts the desegregation of ...blah blah blah"

 

Her: "That doesn't make any sense. That's stupid."

 

So, my fellow numismatists: the unsolicited opinion of the non-collecting public.

[michael_s-migration]

The obverse looks like an advertisement for socks, shoes, slacks, and skirts... Now by reading this thread I understand the idea for that design, but it still doesn't seem to be a well executed design. Though I admit the concept of desegregation is difficult to translate into a two-dimensional, one-color static image.