Have You Ever Wanted to Design a U.S. Coin?
In my mind, one of the most amazing things a coin collector could ever hope to do would be to actually design a U.S. coin. Coin collectors look with reverence upon classic U.S. coin designers such as Augustus Saint-Gaudens (best known for his gold Double Eagle design), Victor David Brenner (the famous V.D.B. who designed the venerable Lincoln Cent portrait), and George T. Morgan (of Morgan Dollar fame.)
Although very few collectors (myself included) actually possess the incredible artistic talent to have a realistic shot at designing a U.S. coin, the U.S. Mint has a program called the Artistic Infusion Program (AIP) which allows practically any qualified artist to have a chance to design our nation's coinage. The AIP periodically accepts applications, although they aren't doing so at the moment.
What inspired me to write about this topic today is that I noticed that the U.S. Mint has substantially upgraded the AIP section of its Web site, adding photos and bios of all of their AIP artists. They've also added photos and lengthy bios of the U.S. Mint staff artists, called sculptor-engravers. This is a wonderful upgrade, because the artists who design our coins haven't enjoyed very much celebrity during the past decade. Even though their artwork is easily the most well-known and widely distributed art in America (we all have to use the coins they design), our coin artists' names are virtually unknown to average Americans.
Scrolling down the list of AIP Designers, it becomes immediately obvious that two artists among the whole college of 16 have designed the majority of the coins credited to current AIP participants through 2008: Joel Iskowitz leads the list with 10, followed by Susan Gamble with 9. 9 more designs are distributed among the rest of the participants, with most having no successful designs at all. That's not to say that they never design anything, though.
The way the process works is that the Mint sends a design narrative to several artists for each coin design that needs to be created. The commissioned artists do their best and send their work back to the Mint, which might ask for changes or slight revisions. When the Mint is happy with the designs, it then consults with the various parties who have a voice in the design selection process (such as the Citizen's Coinage Advisory Committee, the Commission of Fine Arts, and other boards that might have an interest in a given commemorative coin.)
Although the Secretary of the Treasury has the final say on what gets minted, the various committees and Mint experts all share their input, whether it's a technical assessment of the feasibility of actually creating dies from the design that will withstand the high-speed reality of modern coining, or a historical fact-checker who makes sure the elements of the designs are historically accurate. All of these things are taken into consideration when the final design is chosen. It's worth noting that the artists' names are not disclosed during the committee vetting in order to keep the process as unbiased as possible.
The fact that two AIP artists end up with the lion's share of the design credits accorded to the AIP tells me that being a competent and talented designer isn't enough to successfully design coins. There is a certain something, an intangible quality of Iskowitz's and Gamble's work that resonates with the decision makers in ways that the other artists' work obviously doesn't. It will be interesting to see if the new Secretary of the Treasury tends to choose the same artists' work going forward.
The true test of time for these artists will be whether coin collectors in the next century look upon Iskowtiz and Gamble with the same reverence that we look upon Saint-Gaudens and Morgan with today.
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