Remember? He was only the second engraver. Gobrecht changed that to half dime, spelled out.īLANCHARD: Now, we don't know why Gobrecht made this change. So a half dime, which was a denomination back in the day, would have been five C period.

TUCKER: Before Gobrecht, it was a combination of numerals and abbreviated cent signs, for example. And more to the point of our listener Randy's question, there was another radical departure in Gobrecht's design - how the numbers were written.

It becomes known as the liberty seated design. And the mint adopts it for, like, all of their silver coins. You know, she's seated, and she's very much in control of her destiny and her surroundings.īLANCHARD: She has this casual posture, flowing robes. TUCKER: It's during this period that Gobrecht starts to come up with all of these coin designs that are a radical departure from what others before him had done.īLANCHARD: Like, before Gobrecht, American coins had these formal, traditional designs - usually a woman in profile. But when that position opens up, he's passed over. And if you happened to be an artist in Philadelphia, then you would catch the eye of mint officials, as he did.īLANCHARD: So, Christian Gobrecht goes to work for the mint, and he wants to become the chief engraver. And his name is Christian Gobrecht.īLANCHARD: Christian Gobrecht was an artist born in the 1780s in Pennsylvania, and growing up, he was always drawing in journals and sketchbooks. He studies coins and money - a.k.a., he's a numismatist.ĭENNIS TUCKER: (Laughter) Well, I don't know if I would call him a culprit, but he's certainly a character of note. So, Planet Money, maybe you can solve this important mystery.īLANCHARD: We love a good mystery, so we decided to pull at this thread by talking to Dennis Tucker. coins? Instead, we spell out one cent, five cents and quarter dollar. Have you ever noticed there are not numbers on U.S. This is Randy Simpson from Livermore, Calif. coin design started with this somewhat innocuous listener question. Here's Dave Blanchard of NPR's Planet Money podcast.ĭAVE BLANCHARD, BYLINE: Our journey into the history of U.S. They honor people like Maya Angelou, Wilma Mankiller and Eleanor Roosevelt, and the redesign gave the mint a chance to rethink some odd little details of U.S.

Us mint coins