In design review for silver companion medals to accompany “Best of the Mint” gold coins to be issued for the U.S. semiquincentennial in 2026, the Commission of Fine Arts July 18 mainly agreed with the Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee’s picks two days before. The CFA favored only one pair of designs that differed from those the CCAC preferred for the five .999 fine medals.

The proposed designs receiving CCAC support are illustrated with the cover article in this week’s issue.

The “Best of the Mint” program recognizes five coin designs collectors picked in a U.S. Mint survey selected from among 21 classic issues reviewed. The winners were the Class I original 1804 Draped Bust silver dollar; 1907 Saint-Gaudens, Roman Numerals, High Relief, $20 gold double eagle; 1916 Winged Liberty Head silver dime; 1916 Standing Liberty silver quarter dollar; and 1916 Walking Liberty silver half dollar.

All five coins to be issued in the celebratory 2026 program will be struck in .9999 fine gold, with weights and diameter as detailed in the text of this issue’s cover article.

Along with the coins, the Mint is issuing silver medals thematic of the coins to which they are linked.

Companion medal

The CFA picks that differ from those the CCAC supports are for the silver medal paired with the gold coin replicating the 1907 Saint-Gaudens double eagle. The U.S. Mint’s narrative for the CFA-favored designs for that silver medal notes the designs “pay tribute to dual suns on the obverse and reverse of the 1907 $20 Gold Coin and to sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens’ broader body of work, inspired by Saint-Gaudens’ ‘Diana of the Tower.’

“The designs are meant to evoke Classicism, which informed Saint-Gaudens’ works, through balanced, understated design, and encapsulate its essence through the inscription VIRTUS, which translates to ‘virtue’ in Latin.”

Examples of Saint-Gaudens’ Diana of the Tower sculpture are found in many major museums across the United States, including the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, the Brooklyn Museum and Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Diana was unveiled atop Madison Square Garden’s tower on Sept. 29, 1891, but too large, was replaced by a smaller version in 1893. According to the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s website, “When installed in 1893 on the tower of New York’s Madison Square Garden to serve as a weather vane, Diana ruled the highest point in Manhattan. The sculpture’s gilded form caught the sun during the day and was illuminated at night by the city’s first electric floodlights.

“Madison Square Garden was demolished in 1925 and the Philadelphia Museum of Art adopted the [second] sculpture in 1932 with support for conservation and shipping from the Fairmount Park Art Association (now the Association for Public Art). Diana has reigned as the goddess of the Museum’s Great Stair Hall ever since.”

The Diana weather vane was commissioned by architect Stanford White, a close friend of Saint-Gaudens.

Model Julia “Dudie” Baird posed for the body of the statue. Its face is that of Davida Johnson Clark, Saint-Gaudens’s long-time model and mother of his son Louis.

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