Release: MONDAY MAY 15, 2020
A month or so ago, the Land ‘O Lakes company announced they were removing the image of the Indian maiden from their dairy packaging. Painted in 1928, the artist named the maiden Mia. There she stayed on the packaging in several incarnations until recently. One explanation for her departure was that the image might be considered “racist and an example of cultural appropriation.”
Wow. I’d wager 99 percent of people never considered themselves racist when admiring the nice image of the young maiden. That’s if they noticed her at all. After 90 years, such things often blend into packaging. These days, I suppose everyone is super-sensitive to anything that might be even borderline racist. And, certainly no one wants to be so accused or categorized.
Coin collectors are glad artist James Earl Frasier didn’t feel that way. In the early 1900s, he was an artist tapped by the US government to create an image for a newly proposed US coin. The new nickel was to replace a circulating variety that that depicted a rather boring allegorical head of “Lady Liberty.” Just a few years before the Land ‘O Lakes butter image debuted, Fraser created the iconic and revolutionary “Indian Head” or “Buffalo” nickel.
About his decision to create the coin, Fraser commented, “I felt I wanted to do something totally American—a coin that could not be mistaken for any other country's coin. It occurred to me that the buffalo, as part of our western background, was 100% American, and that our North American Indian fit into the picture perfectly.” Any way you cut it, that’s a hefty compliment. Fraser’s design was approved and released in 1913. There it stayed for 25 year until 1938.
Even after that, Buffalo/Indian head nickels remained circulating in the change of Americans for decades. By the early 1960s, it was a regular pastime to fish through change to find them. Many adults vividly recall discovering them in pocket change while glancing through coins.
A visit to a bank used to yield them in bags or rolls. That was the peak of the Whitman blue folders in which kids and adults would sort their found treasures by date and mintmark.
Invariably, kids wondered who the Indian was depicted on the coin. That made sense. After all, we all knew of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Roosevelt. So too for Franklin and Kennedy. It was only natural to want to identify the person on one of our most commonly used coins.
For many years, Chief Iron Tail of the Oglala Lakota Sioux tribe asserted he was the one on the coin. Another, Two Guns White Calf of the Blackfoot tribe also claimed the honor. So too for a Seneca chief named John Big Tree.
In the end, the question of who appeared on the coin was answered by artist Fraser. It was a composite of three men – Iron Tail; Big Tree, a Kiowa; and Two Moons, a Cheyenne. At the commemoration of the nickel in 1913, multiple Native American chiefs were in attendance. Those attending were presented with pre-issue examples of the coins. Happily, there were no protests or demonstrations at the ceremony.
Recently, a large ad in a major national news publication offered readers the chance to purchase a hoard of the vintage nickels. It offers 23 of them for just under $50 (plus shipping). That comes to roughly two dollars per coin.
The ad states the coins are in “very good” condition. Truth-be-told, in collector terminology, “very good” is not great. Because these were workhorse coins, they saw a lot of wear when carried in people’s pockets. A combination of the soft metal and the nature of the design meant details often wore away fairly quickly. A grade of “very fine” or better is far preferable and much more visibly attractive than “very good.”
Some of the nickels today can easily climb into the hundreds or even thousands of dollars apiece IF they are in brilliant, uncirculated condition. Well-circulated coins – not so much. In fact, many local coin dealers often have a variety of dates in fine or very fine condition for as little as 25-cents apiece.
There’s no question these nickels are a fascinating relic of US history. One can only hope they aren’t one day looked at as somehow derogatory. That was clearly never the case or intent.