The E-Sylum:  Volume 8, Number 44, October 16, 2005, Article 11

ON FORWARD-FACING PORTRAITS

Last week we discussed the U.S. Mint's new design for the
obverse of the Jefferson nickel, with a portrait of Thomas
Jefferson facing forward.

Larry Gaye writes: "An observation regarding the new design
of the 2006 Jefferson nickel: regarding wear, I am a collector
of Byzantine and related coinages. For a great part of the
history of the coinage the Emperor's and other personages
were imaged face on. This results in a very quick deterioration
of the nose. Sooner or later this will happen on the new "Jeff."
I suspect this will be a grading point as to slight wear being a
dead give away of an AU coin and so forth."

Martin Purdy writes: "The most outstanding (pun intended)
example I can think of would be the forward-facing portrait
of Henry VIII used on base silver coinage toward the end of
his reign. Because the coin had a high copper content, the
silver wore away rather quickly from the highest part of the
design (the royal nose), giving rise to the title "Old Coppernose".
I hope Tom doesn't suffer the same fate ..."

For more information, see this well-illustrated 26-page article
on the Spink web site on the British Kings and Queens and
their Coinage: Full Story

  Wayne Homren, Editor

	coinbooks.org Web

The Numismatic Bibliomania Society is a non-profit organization 
promoting numismatic literature. See our web site at coinbooks.org.

To submit items for publication in The E-Sylum, write to the Editor 
at this address: whomren@coinlibrary.com

To subscribe go to: https://my.binhost.com/lists/listinfo/esylum