Touring the U.S. Mints &
The Unused Susan B Anthony Design

Thanks to U.S. Mint Director of Corporate Communications Tom Jurkowsky, to author and publisher of Whitman Publishing Dennis Tucker, and to author, my friend and fellow dealer Q. David Bowers, I and a few other researchers were able to tour three of the U.S. Mints in 2015 – Denver, San Francisco and Philadelphia. Our final stop was the Philadelphia Mint. There we spoke with the artist-sculptors in the mint's Engraving Department, and saw their actual coin art in all the various stages of creation – from computer sketches and models to master hubs, master dies and finished working dies. A highlight for all of us was a quick peek at the archives of the U.S. Mint where surviving records and older coin artwork are stored. Most is from the late 1850s to date, but some earlier work survives as well.

As Littleton has sold millions of Susan B. Anthony dollars over the years, it was fun for me to review some of the Frank Gasparro artwork for the first year 1979 Susan B. Anthony dollar issue.

A surprise in reviewing our photos later was finding a galvano (a large metal model of the design that will appear on the coins) of a slightly different Frank Gasparro design than the one used on actual 1979 Anthony dollars. Both galvanos are shown here.

I call the design displayed on the unused galvano the "Young Susan B." Among the significant differences is that the designer's initials "FG" are located between the last "9" of the date "1979" and the first star. It has a slightly longer neck, less well defined hair, and a smaller collared bust area. Personally, I favor this model over the galvanos that were used to produce the 1979 dollar coin.

On the galvanos used to produce the dies for the issued coins, the hair was strengthened, the neck shortened, and the eye, the eyebrow and the nostril are slightly modified. See if you spot any other differences. We did not find the plaster model for the unused version, which would have been utilized to produce the galvanos, but a return visit may turn it up.

Eventually, the U.S. Mint will be putting their archives online for all researchers and collectors to see. I know there will be more discoveries made when they do so. All of this is very exciting, of course!

Eventually, the U.S. Mint will be putting their archives online for all researchers and collectors to see. I know there will be more discoveries made when they do so. All of this is very exciting, of course!