By
Greg Cohen, Professional Numismatist and Consignment Director, U.S. and World
Coins
Stack’s Bowers is pleased to present for your bidding
consideration, a heretofore unknown and unpublished Hermon MacNeil plaster
model for a dime design submitted during the coin design competition of 1916,
which gave numismatics such classics as the Mercury dime, Standing Liberty quarter,
and the Walking Liberty half dollar. Consigned by a member of the family who
purchased the MacNeil property in College Point, NY after his death, this
plaster did not meet the same fate as many other MacNeil works that were
consigned to the landfill. Below is the expert description, written by guest
cataloger Roger Burdette. Stack’s Bowers Galleries expresses its gratitude to
Mr. Burdette for his assistance and wishes the bidders the best of luck. The
discovery of this piece, along with the plasters for the Standing Liberty quarter
we sold in the ANA sale last year, shines a new light on the 1916 design
competition, adding to the expanded knowledge base that Mr. Burdette created
with his three-volume Renaissance of
American Coinage.
Our catalogs are currently at the printer and will be in the mail
shortly. The sale will also be posted to our website this week. For more
information about this, or any other lot in our 2013 official auction of the
American Numismatic Association’s World’s Fair of Money, do not hesitate to
contact any of our numismatic experts.
We are currently accepting consignments for the final two Stack’s
Bowers auctions of 2013. If you have any items relating to coinage designs, you
should contact us. In recent years, we have sold items like this from the
Chester Beach archive, members of the MacNeil Family, and now this unknown
plaster model. We look forward to hearing about your holdings and working with
you.
Beginning of the 1916 Silver Coin
Designs
In 1915,
Secretary of the Treasury William G. McAdoo and Mint Director Robert W. Woolley
decided it was time to change the designs of the silver dime, quarter and half
dollar. Aesthetically, the old designs by U.S. Mint Engraver Charles Barber,
approved in 1891, were considered mediocre and eligible for replacement with
new, more contemporary and vibrant concepts. Politically, the Wilson
administration wanted to demonstrate its break with the past and convey,
through new coinage, America’s expanded role in the world. Finally, Woolley
wanted a new design that was unique to the half dollar. He hoped this would
increase circulation and use of the coin, which in turn would reduce the cost
of producing small change.
Director
Woolley approached artist Herbert Adams, a member of the Commission of Fine
Arts, requesting the names of sculptors who might be able to redesign the
coins. The administration wanted to start distributing new coinage in July,
1916 at the beginning of the government’s fiscal year, and time was short.
Adams’ advice
was to commission three of the country’s finest sculptors, then give each a
coin denomination design to complete. Woolley was concerned this might cause
delay and possibly force acceptance of an inferior design. His plan, approved
by Secretary McAdoo, was to have all three sculptors prepare designs for all
three coins, although Woolley expected each artist to design only one coin.
Hermon
MacNeil, Adolph Weinman, and Alban Polasek were selected to design the coins,
but none of them liked the director’s plan very much. All three objected to
having to make designs for three coins, when it seemed that only one coin would
be awarded to each artist. MacNeil, the most experienced of
the trio, took the lead in contacting the others. He was able to convince them
to abide by the director’s terms. The three agreed among themselves to deliver
their design sketches around the middle of February. This filled a gap in the Mint’s
specifications and gave the artists a clear due date for completion of their
preliminary work.
On account of the very limited
time in which you allow for these designs, I have consulted with Mr. Weinman
and Mr. Polasek in regard to the best method of procedure as we have mutually
agreed to try and have such preliminary sketches or studies for these designs
as we have made, ready on or about the middle of February, so that by your
having them all together at the same time, your judgment of their merits may be
facilitated and as little time as possible lost in making it. (US Mint,
NARA-P, Letter dated January 11, 1916 to Woolley from MacNeil)
The three artists made multiple pencil drawings of their ideas and
several small plaster models. Europe was at war and each day brought new
threats to drag the United States into the conflict. An air of protective
watchfulness pervaded the country, which affected the concepts each sculptor
sought to express on the coins. Extant drawings suggest the artists worked
freely, generally planning a specific design for a particular coin denomination
when they were ready to make their final drawings or sketch models
Director Woolley met with the artists on February 23 in the New
York Assay Office. The artists showed their drawings and plaster sketch models
– approximately 24 in number – to the mint director and answered his questions
about the designs. Everyone was still under the assumption that each artist
would end up with one coin design.
The sketches and models, now totaling 32 after adding designs by
Mint Bureau engravers Charles Barber and George Morgan, were taken to
Washington. There, Director Woolley and Secretary McAdoo examined the designs
and selected six they felt were the best.
Five
of these had been submitted by Mr. Weinman, and one by Mr. MacNeil. None of Mr.
Polasek’s found favor. As only one of Mr. MacNeil’s was found acceptable, I
understand it is the intention to combine one of Mr. Weinman’s with Mr.
MacNeil’s on one coin. (CFA, NARA-DC, Letter dated February 28, 1916 to Adams from Harts)
Neither Adams nor any of the sculptors liked this decision. After
much persuasion by Adams and others, the final outcome was that Secretary
McAdoo allowed MacNeil to make new designs for the reverse of the quarter.
Weinman ended up designing the dime and half dollar, and Polasek got nothing
but a $300 participation award.
The plaster
model presented in this auction is certainly not a finished design. The rough
fabric and irregular treatment testify to its use to display a concept, or idea
and not a final product. Almost nothing remains of the sketches or models made
by any of the artists between January 11 and February 23, 1916. These were
evidently the only group from which Director Woolley made his selections. Yet,
until discovery of the current dime model, the only known example was a dime
model by Alban Polasek now in the possession of the Polasek Museum in Winter
Park, FL. As the only known sketch model for the 1916 silver coinage
competition in private hands, this piece is a truly unique part of American
creative history.
No photos
were made by the Mint of the models, and it is likely that most remaining
preliminary materials were discarded long ago. We don’t know if this piece was
among those examined in Washington or if it remained in MacNeil’s College Point
studio. Existence of this piece leaves us with but a faint hint of what variety
the three sculptors might have displayed.
Description
MacNeil’s model is made of white plaster, with a
few areas of light gray on the front, mostly over the elements of the design,
and several areas of light yellowish discoloration at the top of the front.
The dime design is 86 millimeters in diameter.
This is within an irregular border that is from seven to 17 millimeters larger.
The thickness varies as expected for a cast and is approximately 21 millimeters
thick at the greatest point. The model weighs 171.0 grams. The edge is plain.
The front, or design side, has a plain central
shield embossed with the words “TEN / CENTS” in two lines. A small horizontal
tablet hangs from shield bottom much like an award bar on a medal. Surrounding
the shield are two branches with leaves, buds and flowers. These appear to be
budding olive sprigs. The cut ends of the branches cross below the shield in
conventional fashion. There are two ill-formed five-pointed stars at lower left
and right. Surrounding the composition at the periphery are 83 small ornamental
circular dots. All design elements are roughly made and incomplete, suggesting
rush work for a design concept, and not a final product. The surface has many
small bubble cavities and other defects consistent with a quickly-made cast.
The back is signed “H A MacNeil / College Pt /
NYC” in three lines. Portions of the signature and inscription are visible only
as indentations in the plaster. This surface has many small and medium size
bubble cavities and other defects.
Background
Following
Hermon MacNeil’s death in 1947, much of the contents of his studio and personal
files were consigned to the trash. (A similar fate befell James and Laura
Fraser’s studio after their deaths.) Fortunately, several people, including
neighbor and commercial illustrator James A. Coughlin, saved portions of the
property from destruction. These materials form the core of MacNeil document
collections at Cornell University and the Smithsonian Archives of American Art.
In 1951 the
consignor’s father purchased the MacNeil home and studio at 121-01
5th Ave. College
Point, Queens, New York. The large, gambrel roofed studio was nearly empty but the family
did find the plaster coin model we offer in our sale. The model was
displayed in the family home for many years, and has remained in the family’s
possession since 1951.
Some months ago the consignor’s husband was corresponding with an
historian (James E. Haas) who had written several books about College Point residents.
During conversations, the coin model was mentioned, and it was felt the plaster
model might be of interest and value to numismatists. The consignor contacted
Stack’s-Bowers Auctions due to their expertise in handling several other
plaster and metal models by Hermon MacNeil.
Readers can learn more about the 1916 coinage designs in the book,
Renaissance of American Coinage 1916-1921
ISBN 978-0976898603 by Roger W. Burdette.
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