New Research Paper for Your Enjoyment! The Artistry, Culture, and Ideals seen in Pattern Coinage

airplanenut

I just finished and handed in my very last research paper for high school (Yay ). The topic was anything relating to art, so I wrote about the artistry of Pattern Coinage, as well as the Culture and Ideals they portray. I think it's an interesting paper, and had a lot of fun researching it, even though I'd spend an hour on a given paragraph, going back and forth between Judd, Pollock, and some auction catalogs.

I was in Baltimore last weekend, where I wrote most of it. My dad, my usual editor, was there to read over it, and told me it was the most scholarly paper I've ever written (). He also reviewed a paper for a real science journal at the same time... he said I wrote better than the group of scientists (). Anyway, I hope you enjoy the paper! It's a bit shy of 8 double-spaced pages.

(I had to remove two sets of images because they were from the Smithsonian, and I can't release them... sorry )

No pictures for the dial-uppers:
PDF Format (26Kb)
.DOC Format (49Kb)

With lots of pictures for everyone who can take the large file size:
PDF Format (813Kb)
.DOC Format (1.2Mb)

I'd also like to thank a few people who helped me find the right sources (which I got out of the ANA Library):
-Andy Lustig (MrEureka)
-Rick Kay (RKKay)
-Mark Hagen (boiler78)
-Roger Burdette
-Jane Colvard at the ANA Library


Enjoy!

Jeremy

FinallyHere

Jeremy,

What a fantastic and truly interesting paper! It's certainly easy to see why your father said what he said and is so understandably proud of his son and of a job well done. If for some reason Mr. Kaplow does not provide you with an A+ grade on your hard work, please feel free to kindly tell him he's lost his mind and should think about opening a self serve car wash.......

Great work Jeremy and so glad this is your last research paper. However, you do have a wonderful gift. Use it and may you be immensely successful.

Mike Printz

anablep

Jeremy,

As a high school (science) teacher and numistmatist, I thoroughly enjoyed your paper. You deserve an A for sure.

Regards,

Wayne

MrEureka

Very well done. Only two "issues" caught my eye:

1. When you talk of the "Stateless" patterns of 1859-60, the reader is likely to expect you to tie that in to the political environment of the times. While we numismatists know that politics had nothing to do with the patterns, the less-informed reader will think you skipped over a juicy story. Explaining why that is not the case might improve the paper.

2. Couldn't you find a better example of J-1510 to illustrate the paper?

But I'll still give you an "A". Keep up the good work!

airplanenut

Mike and Wayne,

Glad you liked it

Andy,

Thanks for the reply--that was something I would have never even considered. Another problem was a page limit--the limit was 7, but I stretched it to nearly 8 (and that was after I moved a regular heading to a title page to save some lines ). There were a few things I wanted to touch, but couldn't... one was the small diameter double eagle pattern. I love it, but I didn't have the space

Jeremy

boiler78

Jeremy- Excellent work! Very well written and easy to follow for the serious numismatists and non-collector alike. Keep up the good work. BTW I think the J1510 you used is beautiful!

Barry

Nice job, Jeremy. While this may be your last research paper of high school, the fun is just beginning. OTOH, if you become an engineer, you will be expected to be illiterate. I remember the ol' college motto well:
Before I came to Rensselaer, I couldn't even spell engineer, and now I are one!

Speaking of which, any news on the college admission front?

Barry (B.S., Biomedical Engineering)

pharmer

Very good job, Jeremy. It was all new info for me and quite interesting.

airplanenut

Thanks, Boiler, Barry, and Pharmer

Barry, on the college front... I'm in at GA Tech, University of Washington (Honors program)--they were my safties.

Monday, I got a letter from Washington University in St. Louis that I'm receiving a scholarship, and I've been accepted (although my official acceptance comes in a month). That's a school that I really wanted to attend from the getgo, so it's nice to have under my belt Still waiting on 7 other schools.

Jeremy

LeeG

"Very Well Done" I can see you have a very bright future ahead! Lee

mgoodm3

Nice job.

Coinosaurus

Good job.

In the old days, we were only allowed use literary criticism as a research topic for English papers.

Glad to see these English teachers lightening up a bit

Mark

Jeremy:

As a college teacher (Economics, not English, though the two subjects are alphabetically close ) I think the paper was wonderful. I never thought about it, but the patterns issued in the 1860s are a good example of US history--the "In God We Trust" motto and then the patterns with Lincoln on them after he was assassinated. I don't have a copy of Judd or Pollock handy, but I don't recall any especially warlike designs being created at that time, which runs counter to the idea that the 1916 quarter (with Liberty bearing a shield) and some of the 1790 coins (with the arrows in the dexter claw of the eagle) indicate U.S. willingness to fight foreign foes. But, I wonder away from praising you for your truly excellent work. It was most gracefully written and had no grammatical errors that I noticed.

Whichever college you attend will be fortunate to have you. What are you planning as a major? If it's engineering or a closely related field, GA Tech is the best of the bunch. If it's not engineering, I think Wash U is the best of those that you have mentioned.

Mark

airplanenut

Mark,

Here's what I wrote in a 10th grade research paper (which won the PCGS essay contest) regarding the eagle having the arrows in the "wrong" claw:

"From 1798 and on, all coins required to have an eagle featured this design, along with its one gaping flaw. Along with its entirety being representative of the United States, the eagle’s claws are also symbolic. The right claw, considered the honorable claw, is supposed to hold an olive branch, symbolizing peace being honorable. On the other hand, the left claw is considered the sinister and is supposed to hold arrows, symbolizing that war is wrong. Whether an honest mistake or not, the designer, Robert Scot, switched the arrows and olive branch as if to say that he, or the United States, was in favor of war, not peace (The Heraldic Eagle). The design remained unchanged until 1808, when a new eagle, holding the olive branch and arrows in the correct talons, was introduced to gold coins, and then to silver coins in 1809 (Yeoman 201)."

I plan on entering as an aeronautical engineering major. There's a lot that I want to do, so we'll see what degree I leave with That said, here are the rest of my schools:

MIT
Stanford
Cornell
Johns Hopkins
Yale
Princeton
Harvard

Of the schools, MIT, Stanford, Cornell, and Wash U. are my four top picks. I'll be honest that GA Tech wasn't a highly appealing school--great school, but not exactly for me.

Jeremy

northcoin

Other than Cornell, I've gone the college tour route with one or more of my kids at each of the other schools you are waiting to hear from at this point. In fact a nephew just completed one degree at Stanford and is in his first year at MIT. PM me if you want some inside info if it comes down to selecting between those two. You were smart to include Washington University in St. Louis on your list. It and USC are two of the last top tier schools to still offer scholarships based on merit. When my oldest kid opted to attend Harvard they yanked the scholarship they had offered him simply because my income level slipped over their arbitrary threshold. At least Yale was upfront with their acceptance in telling him there would be no scholarship funds for him.

Trime

Jeremy,
I too appreciated your paper and agree with your father's assessment of the scholarliness of the effort.
You are a remarkably mature student and a terrific numismatist.
Your selection of schools suggests a bright future.

airplanenut

Thanks, Trime!



<< <i>It and USC are two of the last top tier schools to still offer scholarships based on merit. >>

My parents both went to UCLA

Longacre

Jeremy:

I read your paper this morning. Very good job. Congratulations. Do you have plans to edit it and publish it somewhere?

Ed62

Jeremy;

Outstanding research and writing. I hope you got an A+.

airplanenut

<< <i>Jeremy:

I read your paper this morning. Very good job. Congratulations. Do you have plans to edit it and publish it somewhere? >>

Hopefully Numismatist will take it If anyone has any corrections for me, please do tell me so I can make it right. I remember my 10th grade paper where I accidentally wrote Lord Baltimore was from Massachussetts

Jeremy

coinguy1

Jeremy, not surprisingly - great job. Glad to see that recommendation I recently made, was justified.

notlogical

I can't open the links.

airplanenut

<< <i>I can't open the links. >>

Do you have Word or Acrobat Reader?

notlogical

I don't think so. We use MSNTV.

airplanenut

That's the problem Any way to save a file and put it on a computer?

skydivdav

Great job Jeremy! You are quite the scholar. Very informative read! Thanks for sharing.
Blue skies!
david