By all accounts, the State Quarters program was a great success, and I have little doubt that the current America The Beautiful series will do the same. The old quarters, with the centrally placed eagle, had all the charm and interest of a new Federal courthouse; by contrast, the recent commemorative series have featured a wide variety of interesting subjects presented in interesting designs. Similar commemorative runs are doing the same for pennies and nickels, though I’m unaware of anything in the works for the dime–which sorely needs to lose the fasces design on the back. I mean, a fasces? Really? Somebody actually thought that was appropriate for a coin designed to honor FDR?
On the other hand, nothing like this has been proposed for the currency. There have been several rounds of security enhancements, including the introduction of visible watermarks which seems like a rather retro approach. But during this process the the subjects depicted on the backs of the $5-, $10, $20, and $100-bills have never varied, and the depictions of the the Treasury and the White House have actually lost most of the visual interest they had until the early 1990s. Especially the Treasury building; the dramatic corner perspective view gave the picture depth, instead of having it look like a postage stamp. Today’s version, instead, is little more than an architect’s front elevation, without any attempt at perspective or depth. The old twenty used to show, in addition to the curved South Portico, a good deal of tree foliage which, in my opinion, made the building look more like an actual house, albeit a very large one. The new ones show the plain North Portico instead, with little foliage. (I do give some props for the looping lantern chains, though)
Enough, I say! Why can’t we have a State Currency series? The possibilities would be limitless, especially if there could be the option to use vertically oriented designs (the Empire State Building or Old Faithful, anyone? How about an Apollo liftoff for Florida?). Or instead of states, the theme could be events in American history, as opposed to just dull views of buildings where stuff happened. I hasten to add that it’s not the buildings themselves I object to, but the remarkably lifeless and flat depictions thereof.
Is this just something that never made it to the table, or is there a definite reason Treasury and the FRB won’t consider such a move? If so, does result from the USD’s position as an international medium of exchange, and the concern that radically different obverse designs would cause an international financial panic of some kind?
