I was "today years old" when I realized the peace dollar has a "V" in place of the "U!"

TheLiberator

Sooo...in my message the other day about wanting to get a 1921 at FUN for my type set, I started researching the coin more and I am shocked to realize I never knew this! I saw one online and went "HUH?!" Of course after researching I see this is part of the design and that the "V" was for "Victory" as done by the designer. Super cool!

Anyone else on here not know this either? It isn't my series (OBVIOUSLY lol), but I figured think in the all the years in the hobby I would have realized this before hahah.

OAKSTAR

@TheLiberator said:
I was "today years old" when I realized the peace dollar has a "V" in place of the "U!"

I was what?

PipestonePete

Here's hoping that that expression will stay in 2023 where it belongs.

oih82w8

Yes, there were a couple of U.S. coins that had "V" in place of "U".

TheLiberator

@PipestonePete said:
Here's hoping that that expression will stay in 2023 where it belongs.

DOH! lol. I was hoping to be one of the cool kids today hahahah!

Dug13

What is your reference that the V stood for victory? I have never heard about that.
Many older buildings such as court houses used the letter V in place of the u.
“Most buildings that encompass Roman-style architecture use the Latin alphabet, which only had 23 letters at one time, not including the letter U.“

DCW

Ive never heard of the V meaning Victory, either. It's just an old way of spelling. As noted, usually on buildings and classical sculpture

OAKSTAR

@DCW said:
Ive never heard of the V meaning Victory, either. It's just an old way of spelling. As noted, usually on buildings and classical sculpture

. . . _

Beethoven's 5th

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=beethoven's+5th+symphony#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:ba8f9205,vid:_4IRMYuE1hI,st:0

Greenstang

The early English alphabet consisted of neither a “J” or a “U”
Before that the letters “I” and “V” were used in place of these letters.
Trivia- The letter “J” was the last letter added to the English alphabet in 1524.

JBK

Agree with the above. It was is classical Roman "U", not a V for Victory. (Besides, the dollar commemorated "peace", not "victory").

In any case, I knew this early on and when I was about 10 or 11 I sent that bit of trivia into Boys Life magazine, which had a coin collecting section. They paid 50 cents for such contributions and I got my two quarters in the mail.

OAKSTAR

The days leading up the D-Day, the troops used Morse Code, Ship Signal Lamps and Signal Tubes the transmit . . . _

for victory.

Fraz

I was fifty-two years old before I rode in a Lincoln.

CascadeChris

The V wasn't for Victory but the original Broken Sword under the eagle was to imply that very thing. Unfortunately a newspaper article with the design went "viral" for its time and erroneous public backlash ensued so the decision was made to change the design and it was removed from the master hub at the last second with George Morgan doing the work while DeFrancisci was watching over. Here's a link to some info about it on @dcarr 's website..

http://www.moonlightmint.com/blog_19.htm

may

I learned when I was about 6, I thought it was an error.

johnny9434

✌️ everyone, happy new year ✌️

Manifest_Destiny

TheLiberator

Oh! The "V for victory thing comes up over and over at the top google search results so I just assumed...shame on me haha.

To be fair, it also talked about the classical letters where "V" us a "U" etc.

Steven59

But I read it on the internet so it has to be true:
"What is the V for on the Peace Dollar?"
Victory
“LIBERTY” is inscribed above her and “IN GOD WE TRVST” below her. The “V” in the altered “TRVST” stands for “Victory.”

But I read this on the internet too, so this has to be true also:
"What is the V in trust on the 1923 Peace Dollar?
This classic 90% silver coin was struck by the Philadelphia Mint during the third year of the series. The obverse shows Liberty in a tiara of light. She is framed by the mottoes LIBERTY and IN GOD WE TRVST. (The word "trust" is spelled in classic style, with V in place of U.)"

DoubleEagle59

A true 'V' for Victory coin...............

While five-cent pieces have been called nickels in Canada for generations, the Victory Nickel was actually minted in bronze alloy (1943) because nickel was desperately needed for weaponry and armour plating. Working with other Mint officials, Shingles created a design that featured the now-iconic “V”, a flaming torch to represent sacrifice, and a coded patriotic message using Morse code to spell out “We win when we work willingly” around the edge of the coin.

Victory Nickels were produced from 1943 to 1946, then retired in favour of the much more placid beaver once the war was done.

P0CKETCHANGE

@DoubleEagle59 said:
A true 'V' for Victory coin...............

Another “true” V for Victory coin, but from the US Mint—the 2019-W American Legion commemorative.

From the Mint’s website: “The obverse (heads) design commemorates the inception of the American Legion and its mission to serve America and its war veterans. The outer geometric rim design from the American Legion emblem, the Eiffel Tower, and V for victory, represent the formation of the organization in Paris in 1919 at the end of World War I.”

Here’s an interesting question that seeing the Eiffel Tower on an American coin brings up—what other US coins, if any, depict a building that stands on foreign soil?

(not my coin, it’s a CoinFacts example graded MS 70)

cameonut2011

7 or 8

JimTyler

If we’re talking stupid I thought Washington DC was in Washington state until I was about 20. Should have paid better attention in school.

BryceM

Copied from a post I made a long time ago:

The V was not put on the Peace dollar to symbolize "Victory." In the classic Latin alphabet, V was used as both a consonant and a vowel. That's also why we use a "W" to symbolize "double-U". Our modern U didn't really make it to print until the 1600s.

When an artist is trying to imply something from the classic period, they'll sometimes use symbolism like this.

From New York City:

BillJones

I believe the Romans did not have a “U.” They used a “V” instead. The Peace Dollar were made with that in mind. I thought it was an error for a brief when I was 16.

anablep

I remember as a young child I disliked Peace dollars immensely because of the V in TRVST and thus favored Morgan dollars. I was a strange kid, I suppose. I always assumed it was a Roman spelling rather than V for Victory thing.

I've since come around on the V and love the Peace design.

Sapyx

@BillJones said:
I believe the Romans did not have a “U.” They used a “V” instead. The Peace Dollar were made with that in mind. I thought it was an error for a brief when I was 16.

The Romans had a letter "U", they just wrote it like our letter "V". The Romans did not have a letter to represent the sound we use "V" to represent, as the "vvvvv" consonant does not exist in Latin. For words and names imported from barbaric non-Latin languages that used the "V" sound, the Romans typically used "F" - ironically, in the non-Latin-based Germanic languages, it's the other way around - the letter "V" is pronounced like the English "F".

In Latin, "V" at the start of a word but before another vowel (like VICTORIA, or VABALATHVS) was pronounced more like the English "W", or "OO". So an ancient Roman saying the word "Victoria" would have sounded more like "Wictoria" to our ears. And the famous expression "VENI, VIDI, VICI" would have sounded more like "wenny, widdy, wicky" when Julius Caesar (pronounced "Yooleus Kaisar") originally said it.

In writing Latin, the "Lombardic" shape of the letter "U" replaced the Classical "V" shape after the fall of the Roman Empire, when Latin was preserved primarily in the Church. The two separate English letters, the vowel "u" and consonant "v", slowly separated and took their current forms in the late Middle Ages.

But in the neo-Classical revival period, when all things Roman became trendy again, people started randomly replacing the perfectly good "U" in English words with "V", just for art's sake. Which is why there are buildings all over the United States calling themselves the "COVNTY COVRT HOVSE".

I find the usage of "U" and "V" on the Peace dollar particularly humorous: they replaced the "U" with Latin "V" in the English word "trust", but kept the "U" shape in the Latin words "pluribus" and "unum". If they're going to go around Latinizing everything, they probably should have started with the actual Latin. Literary purists must be grinding their teeth at that one.