The E-Sylum:  Volume 8, Number 15, April 10, 2005, Article 18

BURDETTE'S OBSERVATIONS ON THE BRENNER CENT

Roger Burdette writes: "The comments about Victor Brenner's
original cent design were most interesting and tie in with the "middle"
of my three research books on the 1907-1921 coinage designs.
(The other two, available in July and November respectively,
cover the silver coins of 1916 & 1921, and gold coins of 1907-08.)
Artistic dissatisfaction with Brenner's Lincoln design is evident in
original Mint and related correspondence as early as 1909 and
continues for at least the next 45 years. In 1910 Director Andrew
mentioned dissatisfaction by artists with the tiny portrait. Director
Roberts commented in 1911 about there being too much "bust
and not enough Lincoln". He also encouraged Jim Fraser to pursue
a new Lincoln portrait in 1911 (along with the Indian and Bison),
and felt there was sufficient interest in replacing Brenner's work
that Treasury Secretary MacVeagh was willing to support the
necessary legislation. The Buffalo nickel project side-tracked
this efforts. Director Ross disliked Brenner's "reduced medal" and
in 1952 had pattern cents struck using Fraser's revised Lincoln
portrait and and Oak Tree reverse. (See the Joseph Lepczyk
1982 sale catalog illustrating the models.) The proposed change
was abandoned with the Republican presidential victory since
Ross would soon be leaving office.

Reverting to Brenner's original would do little for the cent except
sharpen die work. Artistically, Brenner's design is the weakest
of all the new designs by outside artists from 1907-1921. All
Brenner did was to shrink his Lincoln centennial commemorative
desk medal set (made by Gorham - reverse legend "Preserve,
Protect, Defend") and replace the date "1809" with "Liberty."
The portrait resembles a dozen other medallic portraits of
Lincoln made for the commercial market, any one of which
could have been used on the cent.

Jim Fraser commented in early 1922: the purpose of the new
designs (Saint-Gaudens, and others that followed) was to raise
the art on America's coinage beyond the ordinary in its
suggestiveness and richness. That, I think, should still be the
goal - an American coinage that expresses the highest ideals
of artistry and creativity possible on these small, metal tokens
of value. Each coin conveys to our people and to the world
the meaning of America. If Abe Lincoln's portrait on the
one-cent coin conveys in some manner that meaning, then let
it be created by the best of our contemporary sculptors, not
by imitating the ordinary and mediocre, or copying the past."

  Wayne Homren, Editor

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