CCAC picks Twain, Reagan designs
Designs for coins that will honor Ronald Reagan, the United States’ 40th president, and Mark Twain, a novelist and humorist, were recommended when the Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee met March…
Designs for coins that will honor Ronald Reagan, the United States’ 40th president, and Mark Twain, a novelist and humorist, were recommended when the Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee met March 5 in Portland, Ore.
Reagan’s portrait will appear on the 2016 Presidential $1 coin.
CCAC Chairman Gary Marks said the committee voted 7 to 2 with one abstention to support design No. 1, a forward facing portrait of a smiling Reagan. The committee had eight designs to choose from.
There were more design candidates for the 2016 Mark Twain Commemorative Coin Program that will feature a $5 gold coin and silver dollar. The committee reviewed 16 obverse and 11 reverse designs for the gold coin and 17 obverse and 14 reverse designs for the silver.
Marks said the committee recomended obverse 1 and reverse 5 for the gold coin.
Obverse 1 features a portrait of Twain, author of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Marks said the committee felt it was a pleasing image of Twain that was not overly complex and would work well on the smaller $5 gold coin.
For the reverse, it recommended reverse No. 5, an image of a riverboat that Marks said the committee thought was a fitting tribute to Twain’s early years spent on the Mississippi River.
For the silver dollar, the CCAC endorsed a portrait of Twain holding a pipe with a silhouette of Huck Finn and Jim, characters from his book, on a raft in the background.
And rather than choose a reverse design from the selection presented to the committee, the CCAC endorsed obverse design No. 11 for the reverse of the silver dollar. The design features an assortment of characters Twain’s works: The knight and horse from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, the frog from The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, and the figures of Jim and Huck from Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
Some wording will need to be changed, Marks said, because it is repetitive from the obverse design, while other elements such as the dollar sign and “USA” will need to be added.
