Your piece about Medallic Art Company holding the original models for the Lincoln Cent prompted me to go to its website, but there don't appear to be any images of said models. Brenner produced so many versions of his medals and plaques from this project that it's really hard to say that any piece is the "original."

I'm attaching images from my Lincoln Cent book that were obtained from the Philadelphia Mint many years ago. As can be seen, these are similar to but not identical to the coin in its final version. I don't know whether the Mint has actual galvanos of the coin as issued.

An item in last week’s E-Sylum is untrue. The plaster model of Brenner’s Lincoln Cent is NOT in Medallic Art’s vault. The original plaster is in the vault of the Philadelphia Mint where it has been since 1909 and has been out of the building on only on two occasions, for exhibits in 1910 and 1971.

The item appearing on the firm’s home page may have been written by a well intentioned – but misinformed – employee. There are two possible sources for the information he misunderstood. The most plausible is the fact that Victor Brenner hired Henri Weil, later president of Medallic Art, to make galvanos from his plaster models of the Lincoln cent before these were sent to the Mint. Both plaster and galvano are in the Mint’s vault.

No copy was kept by Medallic Art. No copy was placed in the archives of dies and patterns of the company.

The second possibility is the Lincoln Plaque by Brenner. It’s portrait of Lincoln is similar to the Lincoln of the cent. It is in MACO’s vault. It was modeled and cast in 1907 two years before the cent model was created. The Lincoln Plaque is shown in the drawing of Brenner meeting with Theodore Roosevelt by Joel Iskowitz. Roosevelt was instrumental in having American coins designed by sculptors outside the Mint.