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July
9, 2002 9:30 a.m.
Reagan
on a Coin
Can’t
we spare the dime?
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ere I go again: Stumping for Ronald Reagan on a coin.
My recent NRO column
on this subject drew an unexpected amount of interest, which is to say
that somebody mentioned it over lunch the other day. I also learned about
a poll of more than 1,900 coin collectors, sponsored by New Hampshire's
Littleton Coin Company in 2000. The respondents were asked to name which
figures they'd most like to see portrayed on circulating U.S. coinage
— and Reagan came in second.
At least Reagan followed
"closely" on the heels of first-place winner, Martin Luther
King, Jr. Third place went to Harry Truman. Five years earlier, a similar
poll by Littleton had Reagan in first, Truman in second, and King in third.
Rounding out the
top 10 in 2000 were John Glenn, Theodore Roosevelt, Rev. Billy Graham,
Neil Armstrong, Albert Einstein, John Wayne, and Elvis Presley.
Armstrong strikes
me as a good pick — a man who will be remembered through the ages
for one of mankind's greatest "firsts," and who also shunned
the spotlight. He wouldn't want to be on a coin, which is admirable.
Not that you're asking,
but my own preferences for positions 4 through 10 run in the direction
of Chuck Yeager, Calvin Coolidge, Fulton Sheen, Edward Teller, Clint Eastwood,
and Michael Bolton.
Okay, I'm kidding
about Michael Bolton.
But I'm definitely
not kidding about Reagan. The man should be on a coin, and where better
to put him than on FDR's dime?
Perhaps the Littleton
Coin Company's finest service was not in providing the survey, but in
showing what a Reagan coin might look like. Check it out here
(you may have to scroll down).
Memo to the Reagan
Legacy Project: Let's win one more for the Gipper.
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