The Montgomery advertiser., 1909-08-12

teapot on tap in Washington just now.
or is likely to be. No: It is not about
the tarif. for that 10 over for the
present, and whether good. bad or
worse II is now the law. The row
this time In In connection with the
Lincoln cent, the new copper coin that
has Just been put In circulation. The
designer of the coin. Mr.. v. D. Breun-
er. placed his initials on the coin. but
that. for some reason or other. 10 dis
tasteful to the powers that be. so the
government has ordered that the noin-
age be suspended until q new die can
be prepared, 30 that the coins instead
OF having the letters "v. d B." oil
them, as those ALREADY made have. viii
only have the one letter "B." on them
IL not that = decidedly small bust
ness for the government to be engaF-
ed in? There might be some shadow
Of excuse for It. II the letters were At
all conspicuous. as of course tho INT
tials Of the man who designed II IL
no official part of the coin. but In this
instance there IL really no excuse for
what seems to be an attack Of oficial
hysteria- We have not examined one
OF the new pieces. but are told that the
initials on 1t are so small and inron-
spicuous that 1t requires verv good
eyesight. or the aid of a maEnifying
glass, to discover them. and when
found they are barely observable. In
fact. 1t is stated that an ordinary OBJ
server would never see them unless at
tention was specially directed to then,
And this Is what Is causing the tur-
observes The Brooklyn Eagle. "bs
some excuse for the tempest in q teapot
that has been stirred UP IL putting the
initials OF the designers OH coins was
not a well established custom. On some
old European coins the full name of
the designer appears and in 1899 Chris
tian Gobrecht put his last name with
the initial &C" upon one OF our silver
dollars. There was fuss about that,
the artist removed his name altogeth-
err. and the director of the mint tn
sisted that the name be restored. That
was done. although less conspicuous
ly than on the original die. so that
collectors have two styles of the dol
lars from that coinage to quarrel over.
The old Bland "cart-wheel" dollars
bear the initial M" of their designer,
Morgan. in two places our dimes.
quarters and half-dollars bear the ini-
tiai "B." of Mr.. Barber. chief engrav-
err at the mint. though 1t takes a
strong magnifying glass to fnd 10 our
gold quarter and half eagles bear all
three initials of Bella L. Pratt. the art
list who designed them; the $40 gold
pieces issued from 1s4s to 1907 bore
the initials of their designer. u. b.
L." and the original Indfan-head
cents bore the IL" Of the same design
err"
The singular feature OF this little
row is that a great many of the coins
had been put into circulation before
any objection was made, SO far as we
are informed. 1t Is not even suppos-
able that the design was made and the
cents coined and put in circulation
without any Of the mint officials having
inspected the first coins turned ont to
see IL the die was correct in all re-
spects, and If that was done we fail
to see why this sudden reversal of
judgment on the subject. 1t might
not have seemed altogether singular
on the part Of some of the minor ON
cials of the treasury, but we confess
to some surprise at Mr.. Taft being
a party to the small tempest that has
been stirred up. Now we suppose the
cents that are already in circulation
will remain, for 1t would be difficult
to call them all in. so that we are
again to have two styles of the same
coin, and all because somebody object
ed to the initials.