Joe Esposito writes:
Dave Harper published an article that I wrote on Hemingway and
numismatics in the September 20, 2016 issue of Numismatic
News under the headline “Hemingway gets his numismatic due.”
It is an interesting article. It is not available digitally, but
I posted it on my history blog.
Here's an excerpt! -Editor
It has been 55 years since the death of Ernest Hemingway, one
of the great writers of the twentieth century. On July 2, 1961,
Hemingway, suffering from serious physical and mental problems,
committed suicide in Ketchum, Idaho.
I have been studying Hemingway in connection with other
research. In the process, I have come across several coins and
medals that honor him and well as some other numismatist
connections. Cuba, where the author lived for twenty years and
had ties for much longer, has issued four Hemingway coins.
Hemingway loved Cuba and the Cuban people, and he was treated
as a celebrity. He had a grim view of Castro’s predecessor,
Fulgenico Batista, and was hopeful that Fidel Castro would
improve the lot of the Cubans. Castro later seized Hemingway’s
house, nine miles outside of Havana, and today it is a shrine
owned by the government.
Three of the Cuban coins were issued in 1982: a silver
five-peso with Hemingway’s image on the obverse along with his
life dates; a five-peso which paid tribute to his Nobel Prize and
The Old Man and the Sea novel (there is an image of a fisherman,
presumably “Santiago,” in the small boat on the reverse); and
another five-peso coin with Hemingway’s fishing boat, Pilar, on
the reverse.
The fourth, and perhaps the most interesting, coin is a 2010
Cuban five-peso copper with Hemingway and Castro on the reverse.
It commemorates the fiftieth anniversary of the only meeting
between the two men. Castro participated in Hemingway’s marlin
fishing tournament, and won.
Elsewhere in the region, Jamaica issue a seven-coin proof set
in 1994, and one of the coins was a five-dollar Hemingway coin
with the image of the author and the fisherman on a boat in the
water.
Thanks to Joe and Dave for writing and
publishing this. See Joe's blog online for more, including a
link to an earlier discussion in The E-Sylum. But before
closing, here's one highlight. -Editor
But for me the most noteworthy numismatic item of
Hemingway is an 81-mm bronze medal produced by the French-Spanish
medalist Andre Belo. It has an obverse portrait of Hemingway and
an impressionistic account of Santiago, the old fisherman,
struggling to reel in a marlin on the reverse. The legend in
lower-case letters: “le vieil homme et la mer” [the old man and
the sea].
A copy of this medal sits in my office, sometimes offering
inspiration for writing. Although certainly not rare, it is one
of my favorite medals. It was issued in 1976 by the Monnaie de
Paris (Paris Mint).
Among other works by Belo, who was born in 1908, are medals of
composer Henri Sauguet, literary critic Charles Sainte-Beuve,
musician Erik Satie and writer George Sand
(Amantine-Lucile-Aurore Dupin)--all French--as well as “The
Afternoon of a Faun.”
There are some other interesting items related to Hemingway
and numismatics. He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in
1954 and donated his gold medal to a provincial Cuban Catholic
church. The medal was stolen in the 1980s, but was recovered and
is now closely held by the Catholic Church.
Alas, I've never been to Cuba but would like
to visit one day and perhaps see some of the locations connected
to Hemingway. -Editor
To read the complete article, see:
Ernest Hemingway and Numismatics
(www.ghostofherodotus.com/2016/09/ernest-hemingway-and-numismatics.html)
Wayne Homren, Editor
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