Support for Brenner's Lincoln portrait from Director Leach
RogerB
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Interesting letter from Mint Director Leach supporting Victor Brenner's medallic portrait of Lincoln. This is among the 1,000+ presscopies in RG104 Entry 235 Vol 380.
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Comments
Nice to see everyone cooperating with respect to worthy engraving work.
What's with the bleed on these - thin paper?
Does anyone know if the is THE introductory letter to TR re VDB or was TR already in touch with VDB?
Brenner had already show TR the medal and a similar plaque in August 1908 while Brenner was working on a profile of TR for the Panama Canal service medal. Leach was fully aware of the President's interest. The replacement cent design had been assigned to Saint-Gaudens, but that, with addition of an incongruous headdress ended up on the gold Eagle of 1907.
Presscopies bled easily due to excess moisture on the very thin paper, movement during the copying process, and premature contact with other copies before the paper was dry. Also, on these I did not use a white sheet between pages - it would have more than doubled the digitizing time and been very inefficient. This compromise means the copies are a little more difficult to read, but all remain legible.
Thanks Roger. Didn't look at the letter's date. Odd that Leach was asking VDB about TR as late as early 09.
In another letter on Jan 30, Leach asked Brenner what he would charge for cent designs.
A bit of looking and I find that the Lincoln cent wasn't produced as a pattern until May, so I guess the timing of these letters isn't as odd as I had thought. Evidently the process moved pretty quickly, or so it seems.
Brenner already had a set of plaster models for the portrait from which he had reductions and medal dies made. These required only minor adjustment to comply with Leach's guidance. The first reverse was simple and a quick job - I recall everything being ready by about March 1. (See Renaissance of American Coinage for details.)
$5000 in 1909 is like $140,000 today. Not a bad day's work.
Any idea why VDB was asking how much ASG got paid?
The Mint doesn't even pay artists $5,000 today for coin designs.
Here is an original 1907 Brenner Lincoln bronze plaque (note slight differences between it and the 1909 cent in the bowtie, coat, and beard):
Brenner was already certain that his Lincoln would be desired for the cent - that was the outcome of his showing the medal to President Roosevelt. However, there was no public information on what artists were paid for coin or medal designs. Brenner must have known he could never expect to be paid what Saint-Gaudens had - he was not that caliber of artist - and the Pratt payment must have come as a shock for its paltry amount. A better guide would have been commissions for exposition medals which were usually between $1,500 and $2,000. But these were private transactions and not publicly available for guidance.
My personal opinion is that if we want coin designs of the highest artistic quality, we must pay a suitable amount to the best artists in the country. A minimum of $50,000 per coin (2 or 3 sides with alternates), and sufficient time to develop and refine the work before production. James Fraser worked on the Buffalo nickel off and on from 1911 to 1913, and even made small electrotypes to illustrate his results.