REJECTED COIN DESIGNS

Rejected coin designs take on a life of their own. This week we learn of a rejected coin design from Ireland that is featured in a museum exhibit that illustrates the history of Ireland in 100 objects.

The coin model, prepared in 1926, shows a charming little boy described as "scampish" in the article appearing in the Irish Times this week. The coin model was from a coin competition of 1927 that led to the first national Irish coinage with coins struck in 1929.

A committee, led by Irish poet William Butler Yeats, was charged with choosing eight new coin designs and selecting a sculptor to create the models. They chose animals and a fish native to Ireland as the motifs for each of the eight denominations and selected nine artists from six countries to enter a closed (invitation only) competition.

Irish-born sculptor Jerome Stanley Conner stepped outside the rules -- disregarding the recommended animal -- and created a model for the penny bearing that Irish youth now on exhibit at the National Museum of Ireland. Conner, who had left Ireland at age 14, came to America. He became proficient in sculpture specializing in monumental work in his studio in Washington DC. He had returned to Ireland in 1925 before the invitations to compete were issued.

The artist felt the penny was a child's coin. His design reflected this by celebrating a childhood theme according to the Irish Times article. This also brought to mind the harsh times in Ireland's history where Irish families gave up their children to be housed in institutions because they were poor. The article expands on this.

[I looked up Conner (1875-1943) in my American Artists Databank. He is listed. I found such tidbits as he was a one-time prize fighter, his name was often misspelled Connor -- OR -- even in his obituary in the New York Times (August 22, 1943), and it is listed both ways in biographical dictionaries Fielding (1926) and Falk (1999). Also I had sold in one of my auctions a galvano relief he had created of Walt Whitman.]

In June 2011 Ed Reiter wrote an article of the subject of this coin competition from the viewpoint of one of the rejected artist's models -- those of Italian Publico Morbiducci. He records all artists who were invited in addition to the Italian Morbiducci -- Americans Paul Manship, James Earle Fraser, and Ivan Mestrovic. Fraser declined to participate, Mestrovic received the invitation late and only submitted a model of the Irish harp to be common on all eight coins.

In addition to Conner, Irish sculptors Albert Power and Oliver Sheppard were invited. Also Carl Milles of Sweden and Percy Metcalfe of England. Metcalfe won the competition and the others received a 50 pound compensation.

Reiter's article records the sales of Morbiducci's rejected models over the years. Manship was, perhaps, more aware of his position in the art field. He donated a set of his rejected models to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1929, the year Metcalfe's designed coins were released. He donated his studio set of the eight coin models to the Smithsonian Art Museum (among other studio models) in 1965 a year before his death.

While Morbiducci's models have infrequently appeared in the numismatic and art fields we have knowledge of other rejected coin models. The competition for the Washington quarter, resulting in the 1932 Flanagan design, attracted hundreds of other artists' models.

We all know the story of Laura Gardin Fraser's Washington model for this competition which was resurrected in 1999 for the $5 commemorative gold on the bicentennial of Washington's death. Both her obverse and reverse models were revived for this modern U.S. commemorative.

The U.S. Treasury returned all unaccepted models. Many of those 1932 competition rejected models remained in sculptors' studios. When their estates are sold these come on the market. Those models by New York sculptor Thomas Cremona bounced around the New York City market for some time. NASCA sold one in their auctions, I sold another.

There are many stories of what happens to unaccepted coin models. They take on a life of their own.

To read Ed Reiter's article: AN ITALIAN ARTIST’S LEGACY TO IRISH NUMISMATICS (www.coinnewstoday.com/article2/97-an-italian-artists-legacy
-to-irish-numismatics.html)

To access the Irish Times article by Fintan O'Toole click on: Rejected coin design, 1926 (www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/weekend/2012/1117/1224326693688.html)

Wayne Homren, Editor

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