The Norweb Collection - An American Legacy

Two of the leading dealers of the day, Samuel Hudson Chapman and Thomas L. Elder, wrote to President Theodore Roosevelt congratulating him on his interest in securing a "better and more artistic coinage for the United States" and noting: "We would venture to offer our humble services, as experienced numismatists, in suggesting the names of competent artists or criticizing their designs, and believe, with our knowledge of the coinage of the world, we could be of some.

In the meantime, Augustus Saint-Gaudens was dead, and no word was given as to whether other coinage denominations,from the cent through the $5 piece, would be redesigned by others. This furnished the opportunity for the airing of many ideas. Augustus G. Heaton, one of the leading lights of the American Numismatic Association, an accomplished artist, and the author in 1893 of Mint Marks, an innovative study of the desirability of collecting coins from branch mints (something that was not popular before then), furnished his idea for a new motif, submitting sketches which were published in The Numismatist:

Half Cents of 1796