Miami Valley Coin Club

A Man’s Man

He was a champion for small business; he renamed the executive mansion the White House. He was a war hero, doubled the number of national parks and created 16 national monuments. He won a Nobel Prize and helped physically dig the Panama Canal. He was the first President to ride in a car, a plane, and a submarine. Then Theodore Roosevelt started on U.S. coins.

Teddy loved the look of ancient Greek coins. In 1905, at a Washington dinner, Teddy met someone who thought the same way he did about ancient coins, Augustus Saint-Gaudens. Along with Saint-Gaudens and others he began to transform U.S. coins into some of the most beautiful in U.S. history. The cent, the quarter eagle, the half eagle, the eagle, and the double eagle were all redesigned. His only loss in his redesign endeavor was that Teddy didn’t want “In God We Trust” on the coins. Due to public outrage over this, Roosevelt gave in and allowed it.