October 18, 2010: "Washington Said No"

Author:
D. Wnuck

Concept:
While the story of this coin is familiar to colonial specialists, we thought the readers of CW and NN may not know that this piece was originally produced as a proposed Cent, in accordance with the U.S. Senate’s original design standards, but ultimately rejected by Washington as "too Monarchial", favoring instead a depiction of Liberty.

Captions that didn’t make the cut:
We initially considered a less explicit version of this idea, using slightly obtuse captions suggested by a dealer friend:

Like "Miss Liberty would have looked silly in epaulets.", or "Had this proposed cent design been accepted by Congress, the Presidential dollar series would have been rather anticlimactic.", and finally "Two years early and a Liberty short.‘

But it seemed to us that a little bit more explanation was necessary, so we moved to this extremely literal one:

"President Washington rejected this proposed U.S. Cent as too Monarchial.", but Dave rightly pointed out that monarchial is a mouthful, and that this caption was joyless.

So we went with simplified but more fun version to your left.