The E-Sylum:  Volume 10, Number 12, March 25, 2007, Article 7

ADAMS PRESIDENTIAL DOLLAR COIN ARTICLE

The Patriot-Ledger of Quincy, Massachusetts published an article
March 24 about the making of the new John Adams Presidential dollar
coin.  Interviewed were designer Joel Iskowitz and Mint engraver
Charles Vickers.  Accompanying the article is a great slideshow
illustrating the coin-making process from the original drawings
through striking, bagging and shipping.

"In a phone interview from his home in Woodstock, N.Y., Iskowitz
said he modeled his pencil drawing on a famous John Trumbull painting
of Adams that hangs in the National Portrait Gallery - partly because
the 1793 painting is the closest to Adams' 1797-1801 presidential term,
but also because it seemed to best capture the person described by
his contemporaries.

"'Coins are a different kind of art,' he said. 'For such a small
thing, there's a monumental aspect to it.'

"Once the Mint and the secretary of the treasury signed off on
Iskowitz's Adams design, it was assigned to engraver Charles Vickers,
a Texas native who had a long career at the Franklin Mint before he
moved over to the U.S. Mint.

"Vickers' sculptured clay disk was replicated through a series of
negative and positive molds - the last a hard, epoxy cast that was
mounted on a 19th-century transfer-engraving machine, which miniaturized
the 9-inch cast onto a coin-size, steel master die. That die was in turn
used to fashion a set of dies for the coin's mass production.

To read the complete article, see: Full Story

To view the slideshow on the making of the Adams dollar, see:
slideshows/2007adamscoins

  Wayne Homren, Editor

	coinbooks.org Web

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