When It Comes to U.S. Coins, Fine Arts Panel Wants Change

Diane Wolf thinks it’s time for a change in our change.

Take the penny, for example. It has carried Abe Lincoln’s portrait for 78 years, said Wolf, a member of the federal Commission of Fine Arts.

“The coins we have now have been around for a long time,” she said. “The designs are nice, but they’re dull and outdated.”

Spearheaded by Wolf, the seven-member commission, which reviews U.S. coins and medals, has voted unanimously in favor of redesigning all five U.S. coins now being minted, from the penny to the half dollar. Only Treasury Department approval is needed for the proposal to go into effect.

“America is entering into her third century,” Wolf said. “The coins are America’s calling card. We should use them to celebrate the modern artists of today.”

But, in this issue, the buck stops at the Treasury Department.

The department can change the design of any coin that has been in use for more than 25 years. Those include the Lincoln penny, which made its debut in 1909 and is the oldest among the coins; even its reverse side, portraying the Lincoln Memorial, was issued almost 30 years ago. The Washington quarter was introduced in 1932, the Jefferson nickel in 1938 and the Roosevelt dime in 1946.

In fact, the only coin that is too young to be replaced by the Treasury without congressional consent is the Kennedy half dollar, which will turn 25 years old in 1989.

The department is “looking seriously” into the proposal but has yet to decide on it, said John F. W. Rogers, assistant secretary of the Treasury for management.

“Diane Wolf’s argument has a tremendous amount of merit,” he said. “But there are a lot of other things to consider than just the aesthetic reasons to change the designs.”

Traditionally, the Treasury has worried that the redesigning of coins might lead to hoarding or confusion. Moreover, “there’s the argument that the coins we have work well, so why should we change them?” said a spokesman for the House Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs subcommittee on consumer affairs and coinage.

And the failure of the last new circulating coin introduced by the Treasury--the Susan B. Anthony dollar--has left bitter memories.

The Bureau of the Mint began producing the Anthony dollar in 1979 but halted production a year later because the public confused it with the quarter and preferred, instead, the $1 bill. Of the 847 million Anthony coins that were made that year, the Mint still is left with 345 million and the Federal Reserve Bank keeps about 120 million in storage.

Rogers said the Treasury, like Wolf’s commission, has received “quite a few letters” from the public regarding the proposal to redesign the current coins, but said the responses have been “on both sides of the issue.”

He said the Treasury has already tried to boost U.S. coinage by introducing several commemorative coins, including a $5 gold coin and a $1 silver coin to mark the bicentennial of the U.S. Constitution.

Wolf applauded those efforts but said she will continue fighting for a full-scale redesign of U.S. coinage. The Treasury ought to approve the commission’s proposal, she argued, for its love of money, if for no other reason.

Sticking Her Neck Out

She argued that redesigning the coins should bring a $216-million profit to the Treasury, although the department would not verify that estimate. Wolf cited coin collectors and others who will buy proof sets of both the old and the new coins from the government at prices above face value, as well as the difference between the face value of a coin and the lower cost of producing it.

“This proposal doesn’t hurt the potato farmers or anybody else,” Wolf said, adding that it would take about nine months to redesign the coins. “We’re not even taxing anybody for this.”

Since she was appointed to the commission in 1985, the 33-year-old Wolf, a fund-raiser for Republican causes and art museums in New York, said she has learned one thing during her tenure in the nation’s capital: In Washington, nobody is willing to stick his neck out.

“Everybody’s passing the buck--no pun intended,” she said. “Somebody’s going to have to stand up for this, and I’m willing to try.”

If Treasury Secretary James A. Baker III does not approve the proposal, Wolf said, she is ready to take her battle to Congress, which can pass legislation to have the coins redesigned despite a Treasury refusal. Wolf said she has already gained the support of several senators and representatives.

But the spokesman for the House subcommittee, who requested anonymity, warned: “If the Treasury opposes it, I don’t know why the Congress would enact it.”

If the Treasury does approve it, the commission has suggested that a group of artists be invited to enter a design competition.

Wolf does not know who--or what--should replace the current portraits on the U.S. coins, although she has received a few suggestions. But “nobody has proposed Oliver North--not yet,” she said with a laugh.

The new designs might be portraits or could focus on major historic events, Wolf said. As an example, she pointed to the bold design of the Oregon Trail commemorative half dollar, which depicts a wagon on one side and an American Indian on the other. The coin was issued between 1926 and 1939 to celebrate the pioneers who settled in the Old West.

Not surprisingly, coin collectors around the country consider Wolf’s efforts invaluable. When the weekly newspaper Numismatic News surveyed its readers not long ago, 93% of 2,000 respondents favored redesigning the coins.

“We’ve had the same Presidents (on the coins) all these years, and many of us feel that U.S. coinage is rather stagnant,” said Deborah Muehleisen, a spokesman for the American Numismatic Assn., which is based in Colorado Springs, Colo. “When you have an opportunity to view coinage around the world, you realize that U.S. coins are flat.”