December 13 - A Real, Historical WOMAN - on MONEY!!

Posted on December 13, 2021

Key Points

This is an update of my post published on December 13, 2010:

Have you ever thought about the design of money? Somebody gets paid to decide whose face appears on coins and bills, and what words and other pictures adorn the two sides. Somebody gets paid to decide on the size and composition and color of coins.

And sometimes those somebodies make mistakes.

The Susan B. Anthony dollar was the first U.S. coin to present a portrait of a real woman. On the reverse side, a picture of an eagle flying over the moon honored the Eagle lander of the Apollo 11 moon landing.

Susan B. Anthony was a hero in the cause of women’s
rights – especially women’s right to vote!

What not-so-real woman appeared on earlier coins? Answer below.

Today is the anniversary of the production of the Susan B. Anthony dollar, in 1978.

This coin was one of the most unpopular coins in history. Many people got one or two and stuck them away as keepsakes—but then avoided getting or using the coin any further. In other words, the coin barely circulated. Why was it so unpopular?

It was almost the exact same size as a quarter, and it was silver like a quarter.

Coin designers wanted to make the coin different by making it an eleven-sided coin rather than a round coin—a hendecagon—but vending machines would have had a difficult time with a non-round coin, so the designers just drew the hendecagon picture on the obverse and reverse sides of the coin and used the same reeded edge used for quarters.

With the same size, color, and edge as quarters, is it any surprise that the coin was easily confused for quarters? People didn’t like being confused, and they lost money every time they made a mistake with the new coin—again, is it any surprise the coin was unpopular?