I seem to recall Lincoln appeared on paper money while in office, but don’t remember what denomination.
Head to the Onion site and do a search for the Reagan pyramid. Sick, funny, and dead on.
It’s also illegal, isn’t it? Reagan is still technically alive, so he can’t appear on any U.S. currency or postage stamp.
I was just discussing this very issue with my political science professor, and we came to the conclusion that it was, in fact, the Fedora Hat Cartel that had Kennedy killed.
A few years ago, when there was talk of introducing a new dollar coin, I thought maybe the Republicans in Congress would try to delay action until after Reagan’s death in order to use his image on the coin. (As it happened, of course, they used another design.) I think it would have been easier (in terms of public reaction) to put Reagan on a new coin than to bump Lincoln off the penny (even though he is still on the $5 bill.) The problem with arguing that there should be a long delay before putting a dead president’s image on a coin is that two of the last three presidents so memorialized appeared on coins the year after they died, and both were Democrats (Roosevelt dimes appeared in 1946 and JFK half dollars in 1964.) The third, Eisenhower ®, died in 1961 and appeared on a new, short-lived silver dollar in 1971. So there’s a precedent, and anyone who doesn’t like Reagan will be open to criticism if they insist that we wait 20 years for a Reagan coin when FDR and JFK got in right away. Granted, both of the Democrats died in office, and one had led the country through its greatest war, but still… it has the aroma of partisan politics. Does anyone recall if there was a great outcry of “too soon!” when Roosevelt and Kennedy were put on coins?
Another tidbit: The years of introduction of the Lincoln penny and Washington quarter are historically significant (Lincoln’s birth centennial, 1909 and Washington’s birth bicentennial, 1932. Also, the reverse side of the penny changed in 1959, 150 years after Lincoln’s birth.) The Jefferson nickel came along in 1938… I don’t know the significance of that date (TJ was born in 1743 IIRC.)
I wonder if southerners (many of whom were old enough to remember the Civil War) resented Lady Liberty (in Indian garb) being replaced by Abraham Lincoln on the penny in 1909. At the time, all the other coins in circulation (all the way back to 1793) carried a representation of “Liberty” and not a political figure.
**plnnr—**Actually, the first U.S. coin to show a president was the penny, which sported a portrait of President Washington in 1792. Washington, still in office, didn’t like the idea of idolatry of living men, much less of a man who’s still in office. Washington said that the American people would surely prefer to see a representation of liberty on their money rather than images of their leaders, as if they were under a European monarch. The U.S. Mint removed Washington’s portrait from the penny and replaced it with the image of the “Liberty Goddess,” which dominated U.S. coinage until the early twentieth century, when former, dead statesmen started to take over.
The Bureau of Engraving and Printing has a policy not to put the image of a living person on stamps or currency. It’s not illegal, per se; they just won’t do it, and never have. I like this policy.
The prospect of Ronald Reagan on any piece of American money makes me violently ill. As a coin collector and as an American, the very prospect is extremely offensive. When Reagan dies, I’m sure there will be a lobby to put his visage on some currency instead of some more deserving statesman like Harry Truman or George Marshall.
Though my feelings about Reagan are exactly opposite those of John Corrado, I agree with him about waiting for some time to elapse before putting a person on a coin. Jack Kennedy, Dwight Eisenhower—it was just too soon. Let about fifty years pass before you decide that someone should appear on a coin. The same thing goes for other such honors, like naming an aircraft carrier after the still alive Jimmy Carter, or renaming the Washington Airport after the still alive Ronald Reagan. This is wrong.
malden,
I remember back when they brought out the Susan Anthony dollar, the chief engraver of the mint (Frank Gasparro IIRC) designed a nifty dollar coin with Liberty on the obverse – just like in the old days – but no one would go for it. It’s too bad; IMHO in the twenties we had the most beautiful coins ever, and Liberty was on most of them.
Actually, Carter’s only getting a submarine, Reagan’s getting an aircraft carrier.
Chance, do you have any sites that can corroborate your story of Washington appearing on a United States “penny”? Between 1783-1795 there were some half-penny and penny tokens, mostly of British origin that circulated in the United States, but none of them were issued by the mint. There may have been some cents struck by the mint as patterns for half dollars, but no legal tender circulating issues.
The first coins (albeit patterns) struck by the mint were dismes and half-dismes. Legend has it that the silver that was used to strike them came directly from Martha Wasington’s silver plates. Perhaps that’s what you’re thinking of? FWIW, cents weren’t struck until 1793, and they began with the Flowing Hair type bust. All of the busts on our coinage are meant to be emblematic only of Liberty, not as deities.
Washington indeed objected to being placed on coins, but there is no real precedent per se. There already have been issues featuring living people and even a living president. I dug up a great article about it.
chance said
Not true. The first US coins were the cent and half cent. both struck in 1793. You were correct in saying that an image(head) of a female representation of Liberty appeared on our coins. Washington never appeared on even a proposed(pattern) coin struck under Government auspices, much less on the “penny”(cent) which didn’t exist until 1793.
Some info on the privately produced Washington cent of the 1790s (among other things):
http://www.ece.iit.edu/~prh/coins/PiN/imc.html
I had always heard that Neil Armstrong was the first American to be portrayed on a US postage stamp while living, in September of 1969. So it seems that the general policy of not having living people on stamps is occasionally broken.
But I just checked out a picture of that stamp on the web, and it reads “First Man on the Moon” and the picture is of a guy in a space suit strolling about the moon. Now obviously the guy is Neil Armstrong, and we all know Neil Armstrong was the first man on the moon. Does this actually count as breaking the policy because the picture is not an actual “portrait” of the person?
The picture of the stamp is here:
http://www.thespaceshop.com/nasa/1stmanonmoon.html
Photographs of “generic” people have been used on U.S. stamps. For instance, I just saw a stamp with a photo of a skateboarding kid, but it was to represent the sport, not the kid in himself. I presume (and hope!) this kid is still alive. I guess the “man on the moon” stamp works on the same general principle?
Amazing though, isn’t it? A thread titled “What president is on the dime?” gets 31 replies. You’d figure, “Franklin Roosevelt”, and that would be it! 
There was also a stamp commemmorating Arbor Day in the 1930s I believe that showed two children planting a tree. Both children were real people and alive and well at the time. I think may have been a relative of the Postmaster General.
I’m recalling this all from the little notes along side my childhood stamp collection.
Mr. Sheepshead and samclem—I was sure that there was a Washington cent issued in 1792, and apparently there was—but as Mjollnir’s link points out, they weren’t issued by the U.S. Mint. I now remember that the U.S. Mint wasn’t even open for business until 1793, anyway, so there’s no way that the coin could have been issued by the federal government.
Mr. Sheepshead, that was a great link! I knew Washington had refused having his visage on coinage in some capacity, so I just assumed it was the U.S. Mint that he tendered his refusal to.
I was sure I was right, and I even sought links to back it up. No dice, of course. So thanks for the info; I’ll be more careful before I make bold statements in the future (yeah, right.)
I have this great hat I wear in the winter and I always get stares, and I always resent the fact that hats are out of style. Now I know who to blame it on…
In fact, Eisenhower died in 1969. So, there was only a rather short, two year, hiatus until his appearance on the silver dollar.
[dated joke hijack]
A guy lapses into a coma in 1957. He awakens one day in March 1969 and notes that the flags are at half mast. “Who died”, he asks. “Eisenhower just passed away”, responds the nurse. “Oh Christ”, he says, “that means that bastard Nixon is President!”
[/dated joke hijack]