Seeing the faces of former U.S. presidents on coins (and paper money) is something we’re all accustomed to. Your wallet or coin jar probably features at least one Abraham Lincoln penny, Thomas Jefferson nickel, Franklin Roosevelt dime, and George Washington quarter. You may even have a John F. Kennedy half-dollar or two.
The U.S. Mint began circulating coins featuring designs of U.S. presidents in 1909, and many examples remain popular with collectors today. Let’s review a brief history of how past presidents came to adorn U.S. coins as well as the most coveted coins in today’s collector market.
The History of Presidents on Coins
President Abraham Lincoln became the first president featured on U.S. coins in 1909 when President Theodore Roosevelt commissioned a new one-cent coin design from sculptor Victor David Brenner to honor the 100th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birth. Brenner, a member of the American Numismatic Association, had previously impressed Roosevelt with a plaque of Lincoln he sculpted in 1907. Forty-four years after Lincoln’s assassination, sentiment toward the Civil War president overruled the previously negative view of adding presidential portraits to the country’s coins, and the Lincoln cent was born.
