Art of a Generation: The Coins of Frank Gasparro

By Joshua McMorrow-Hernandez

Relatively few people outside of numismatics know the name Frank Gasparro, yet his coins are some of the most recognizable in the world. Counted among the circular canvases of this 20th-century numismatic sculptor-engraver are the Lincoln Cent, Kennedy Half Dollar, Eisenhower Dollar, and Susan B. Anthony Dollar, representing an enduring legacy stemming from his nearly 40 years as an engraver at the United States Mint. And that’s just the tip of an iceberg that includes a slew of medallic art, including the 1980 Summer Olympics medal, a U.S. Mint medal honoring actor John Wayne, and two early issues from the United States Mint’s American Arts Commemorative Series Gold Medallions of the 1980s.

Frank Gasparro was born in Philadelphia on August 26, 1909, mere weeks after the debut of the Lincoln Cent – a coin he would eventually have a hand in recreating. Hailing from a line of Italian immigrants, his grandparents having been born in the Old World, Gasparro was the son of a musician father who was dismayed to learn his young son Frank wanted to pursue the visual arts.

His frustrated father tore up many of his artist son’s drawings before finally relenting on the matter and arranging for his son to study under Giuseppe Donato, a sculptor who once worked for famous French artist Auguste Rodin. After graduating from South Philadelphia High School in 1927, Gasparro studied at the renowned Fleisher Art Memorial and attended Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Two William Emlen Cresson Memorial Travel Scholarships helped the budding artist travel throughout Europe, where he honed his artistic skills before returning to the United States.

In December 1942, Gasparro was hired by the United States Mint and began working there as a junior engraver under chief engraver John R. Sinnock, whose name is forever linked with his famous 1940s creations known as the Roosevelt Dime and Franklin Half Dollar. Following Sinnock’s passing in 1947, Gilroy Roberts became the chief engraver of the United States Mint and was assigning an increasing number of projects to Gasparro, who by the 1950s had designed a growing body of medals and other art for the mint.

In early November 1958, the Lincoln Centennial Commission requested designs to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birth, an occasion to be recognized in 1959. More than 20 models were created by the mint engraving staff for consideration. Gasparro worked weekend days to prepare a model depicting the Lincoln Memorial, a Washington, D.C., landmark built in 1922 and has become one of the most iconic structures in the nation’s capital.

In short order, the commission and a jury of artists decided the appropriate symbol to honor the 150th anniversary of the 16th president’s birth was the Lincoln Memorial. Wrote Gasparro in United States Mint correspondence of the time, “My first inspiration for the Lincoln Memorial reverse was an accumulation of thumbnail sketches and ideas for a Lincoln coin going back [the] 10 years while I have been associated with the Mint[.] I have always been a great admirer of Lincoln having made various sculptures of him in the past.”

He continued, “I remembered seeing several elevation plans for the Lincoln Memorial during its construction at the Philadelphia Public Library, and I referred to these actual frontal elevation plans for correct proportions,” wrote Gasparro. “I feel that the design of the Lincoln Memorial on the reverse of the One Cent is a fitting tribute and token of esteem to a great president as it shows a national shrine. I placed the words ‘E PLURIBUS UNUM’ – United States of America – above the Lincoln Memorial because I believe they are most appropriate for what Lincoln aspired to – the unity of the nation.”

Gasparro’s early concept for the Lincoln Memorial reverse included an inscription “LINCOLN MEMORIAL” below the main device and 13 stars. These were removed on the account that members of the Commission of Fine Arts, which acted as an advisory panel for new coin designs, suggested the overall design was “too busy.” Consequently, the size of the Lincoln Memorial itself as to be portrayed on the coin was slightly reduced.

One element of the design that was not reworked was the miniature image of a seated Lincoln between the center columns of the Lincoln Memorial, depicting the actual statue of Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial. “The Lincoln statue is an integral part of the building,” wrote Gasparro to a numismatic reporter in 1972. “Without the statue visible between the columns, you would have the appearance of another government building. To have removed the Lincoln figure off the plaster would have made me very unhappy. Imagine the Lincoln Memorial without the seated Lincoln!”

By the first week of December 1958, Gasparro was working on refined models of the coin. Dies were completed by December 21, 1958. Production of the Lincoln Memorial Cent began on January 2, 1959. The new coins filtered into circulation over the following weeks, with the new penny formally released on February 12, 1959 – the day marking the 150th anniversary of Lincoln’s birth. When the new coin was released, many caught a seeming “error” on the coin in the form of a small “o” in the word “oF” before “AMERICA.” Rumors even swirled that the coin was going to be recalled due to the small “o.” Superintendent of the Philadelphia Mint Rae V. Biester wrote a comment that the press widely repeated for its audience, “the designer [Gasparro] purposely put the ‘o’ in lower case because it’s a preposition. Also, it’s supposed to be artistic – it breaks the monotony.” She added, “Look at a [Franklin] 50-cent piece. It has a small ‘o,’ too.”

Five years later, Gasparro and Roberts collaborated for the solemn task of briskly revamping the half dollar to honor President John F. Kennedy, who was assassinated on November 22, 1963, by a lone gunman during a motorcade procession in Dallas, Texas. Calls were immediate that Kennedy be honored on a coin, but the question was which one. The Lincoln Cent was deemed too popular a coin to alter, and Kennedy’s wife, Jacqueline Kennedy, ever the gracious person she was, thought it improper to replace the bust of George Washington on the quarter. Treasury officials decided that the most suitable coin would be the half dollar, which then carried a portrait of Benjamin Franklin on the obverse. Placing Kennedy on halves would also mean that all five of the then-circulating coin denominations would carry a portrait of a president.

However, the Franklin Half Dollar had been in production since 1948 and was nearly a decade shy of the mandatory 25 years required by United States law for a coin design to be changed without congressional approval. The new Kennedy Half Dollar was approved by Congress within mere weeks of the president’s assassination. Thus, the need for a swift redesign process compelled Roberts and Gasparro to repurpose designs from a Kennedy presidential medal they had prepared for the U.S. Mint in 1961.

Roberts borrowed the bust of Kennedy he had designed for the obverse of the medal, whereas Gasparro adapted the presidential seal he had incorporated into the larger reverse design of that piece. In 1964 correspondence, Gasparro recalled what it was like creating the reverse design. “While waiting for the final decision from Congress as to the denomination approved for coinage, I made three rough patterns incorporating the quarter, half dollar, and the dollar lettering.”

The engraver also noted apprehensions in designing the Presidential Seal, which he wanted to ensure was acutely accurate. “Errors on coins are keenly caught by coin enthusiasts, and I had to make a very careful check of the herald symbols on the Presidential Seal. The American eagle in this seal must hold 13 arrows in the (viewer’s) right claw; 13 leaves with 13 olives in the branch in the (viewer’s) left claw. The eagle’s head is turned to the (viewer’s) left facing the olive branch. Thirteen small stars are arranged behind the eagle’s head. The shield in the center covers the eagle’s breast and has seven vertical stripes. Finally, 50 stars encircle the center motif as in the official Presidential Seal.”

The pairing of Roberts’ Kennedy bust and Gasparro’s presidential seal on the new half dollar gained the swift approval of Jacqueline Kennedy, who requested only minor softening of some of the hair detail on the coin. The changes were made in short order and the Kennedy Half Dollar went into official production following two ceremonies at the Philadelphia and Denver Mints on February 11, 1964. The delivery of the new coin to banks began on March 5.

The death of another president called to task Gasparro’s sculpting skills once more. Dwight D. Eisenhower, the five-star World War II Army general who later served two terms as United States president from 1953 through 1961, died at the age of 78 on March 28, 1969. By that time, Gasparro was four years into his role as chief engraver, a rank he assumed on February 23, 1965, after Roberts resigned from the position to embark on a successful career as a private-sector sculptor engraver for the Franklin Mint in Wawa, Pennsylvania.

The dollar coin, a denomination that hadn’t been produced for circulation since 1935 and was nearly resurrected in 1965 by the United States Mint, was to be brought out of retirement in time for the 1970s. While Gasparro was tapped in 1969 to begin models for a proposed Eisenhower Dollar, he already began sketches of “Ike” nearly a quarter century earlier. “Little did I realize, standing on the curb side of 5th Avenue in New York, June 20, 1945, with four million citizens around looking on to see our five-star General Eisenhower coming back from France in a victory parade, that I was going to make a coin in honor of him,” wrote Gasparro in the 1970s. “After I saw him at that time, I did two things: I made a drawing for a medal with his portrait side view and I also made a portrait in the round. This was all done from memory.” He continued that, after being called on in 1969 by Director of the Mint Mary Brooks to develop designs for the new Eisenhower Dollar, “I took out the drawings I had made of Eisenhower, I took out the portrait I had made in the round, and I was ready to do this coin.”

The coin, conceived amid the exuberance just after the United States had sent men to the Moon and safely returned them to Earth, was to also pay homage to the out-of-thisworld feat that the nation had just accomplished. The Eisenhower portrait on the obverse would be paired with the Apollo 11 insignia, symbolic of the NASA mission that launched astronauts Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin into history upon their lunar journey in July 1969. The Apollo 11 insignia was collaboratively designed by the Apollo 11 crew members as well as other high-profile officials on the NASA team, but it was Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins who drove much of the design for the mission logo. Gasparro employed his engraving prowess to adapt the insignia design for use on the dollar coin, softening the look of the eagle to make it look less fierce. He also prepared a heraldic eagle design as an alternative reverse for the new coin.

Throughout 1970, Congress kicked legislation for the dollar coin back and forth, with some disagreement as to whether the coin should be struck in silver or copper-nickel clad. This protracted legislative affair on Capitol Hill only gave Gasparro more time to perfect the design for the coin that was finally signed into law by President Richard M. Nixon on December 31, 1970. With the determination made in Congress that the new dollar coin would be struck in copper-nickel clad for circulation purposes and 40% silver for collectors, the U.S. Mint went right to work in preparing the Eisenhower Dollar for production.

Following the production of prototypes beginning in January 1971, the United States Mint geared up for earnest production of the clad strikes for circulation and silver specimens for collectors.

The 40% silver proof strikes, which were sold individually, entered production at the San Francisco Mint in July 1971, with clad circulation emissions becoming available to banks in November 1971. The Ike dollars were liked by collectors but did not gain much traction as circulating coinage.

By the mid-1970s, the U.S. Mint was searching for ways to broaden use of the Eisenhower Dollar as a circulating coin. The incentive was all about the government’s bottom dollar. A circulating dollar coin was projected to last an average of 30 years in circulation, which is much longer than the 18 to 24 months lived by the typical dollar bill – and the cost savings derived by replacing the ephemeral paper dollar with a longerlasting metal dollar coin could add up into the many millions of dollars over just a few years.

Studies showed the public might be more willing to use the dollar coin if it were smaller and lighter than the copper-nickel clad Ike dollar, which measures 38.1 millimeters in diameter and weighs 22.68 grams. Proposals called for a small-size dollar slightly larger than the quarter dollar and weighing in at 8.1 grams – barely more than one-third as heavy as the Eisenhower Dollar. Gasparro took up the project to create a new dollar coin that he and many mint officials hoped everybody would love.

Gasparro originally prepared models for the new coin with the motif of a young Miss Liberty intended for the obverse and a soaring eagle slated for the reverse. However, prevailing sociopolitical winds of the day steered the U.S. Mint toward basing the new dollar coin on an obverse that featured an historic female. A slew of candidates were pitched, including Helen Keller, Eleanor Roosevelt, Harriet Tubman, and the Virgin Mary. But suffrage leader Susan B. Anthony led in public polling on the matter.

The chief engraver conceded his Lady Liberty obverse to the proposed Susan B. Anthony topic and invested himself in creating just the right design of the late women’s rights leader. There were few surviving images of Susan B. Anthony to refer to, and Anthony’s great-niece was influential in helping Gasparro create an image that she felt was fitting of her great aunt. Gasparro eventually chose to depict Anthony at the age of about 50, at the height of her crusade for equal rights.

Gasparro intended for the reverse of the new dollar coin to carry his soaring eagle reverse, which he originally proposed for an unrealized 1967 commemorative half dollar. However, congressional legislation for the Susan B. Anthony Dollar mandated use of the Apollo 11-themed reverse seen on the Eisenhower Dollar. The ultimate pairing of designs resulted in what some might consider an incongruous coupling of a 19thcentury women’s rights leader being honored on a coin that also paid homage to the landing of men on the Moon during the waning years of the 20th century.

Still, it was a coin capturing the spirit of its time, when the Equal Rights Amendment was appearing to wind its way toward ratification – before falling short of the necessary votes to become law before its June 1982 deadline. President Jimmy Carter, signing the coin into law on October 10, 1978, said, “I am particularly pleased that the new dollar coin will — for the first time in history — bear the image of a great American woman. The life of Susan B. Anthony exemplifies the ideals for which our country stands. The 'Anthony dollar' will symbolize for all American women the achievement of their unalienable right to vote. It will be a constant reminder of the continuing struggle for the equality of all Americans.”

The new mini dollar debuted on July 2, 1979, to much fanfare. The coin represented important firsts, including being the first widely circulating U.S. coin to feature an actual woman and not just a representative female figure (such as Miss Liberty). Gasparro commented in a Numismatic News article of the time that the Susan B. Anthony Dollar “is the biggest thing I’ve ever done. It’s bigger than the Eisenhower Dollar, or anything else I’ve done, because it’s become part of a social movement. This new dollar’s more than a coin – it’s an issue.” However, there was little support for the coin from the public, which largely confused the new dollar coin with the quarter.

The “Susie B.” was in production until only 1981, coincidentally the year Gasparro retired from his longheld post at the United States Mint. The mini dollar was eliminated amid its mass rejection from the public and during a period of federal budget cuts under the first year of President Ronald Reagan’s tenure in the White House. Yet, the Susan B. Anthony saw new life in mass-transit systems and on the United States Post Office vending machine circuit during the later years of the 1980s and into the 1990s. Dwindling supplies of the retired dollar coin necessitated a one-year encore for the Susan B. Anthony Dollar in 1999, which Gasparro, then 90 years old, had the opportunity to see.

Gasparro passed away on September 29, 2001, in Havertown, Pennsylvania, at the age of 92. Obituaries around the country mourned the loss of the man whose Lincoln Memorial Cent had been struck to the tune of more than 100 billion pieces. Many publications both inside and outside the numismatic arena also remembered him for his work on the Kennedy Half Dollar, Eisenhower Dollar, and Susan B. Anthony Dollar, the

Gasparro’s numismatic art defined a colorful period spanning from the days of the Eisenhower era to the dawning of the Reagan Revolution. It was the art of a generation, the coin of an America evolving during a time of historic change and growth. The last of Gasparro’s coins in production today is the Kennedy Half Dollar, a coin that sees limited circulation these days but nevertheless remains as popular now as it was nearly six decades ago.

Collectors wishing to honor Gasparro may choose to collect the coins he helped create, all of which remain among the most popular of modern U.S. coinage. There are ample opportunities with the PCGS Set Registry to build beautiful (and competitive!) sets of Lincoln Cents, Kennedy Half Dollars, Eisenhower Dollars, and Susan B. Anthony Dollars. The avenues for collecting the iconic coins of Frank Gasparro are many, which speaks to the tremendous impact this celebrated sculptor-engraver had on the numismatic scene of the late 20th century and beyond.