Buffalo Nickel Models

[Dietmar]

Welcome ...and thanks for the information.

Are you HinTamaheca from lakhota.com and other forums?

Good to have you here.

Best wishes

Dietmar

[Diane Merkel]

Here's an excerpt from a detailed article about the history and collecting of Buffalo Nickels. It sounds as if Fraser himself eventually made a positive identification of Big Tree:

As we all know, the designer of the Buffalo nickel was James Earle Fraser, whose initial "F" appears below the date. Thoughts of changing the design of the nickel had arisen long before 1913, when the Buffalo nickel made its debut. For example, according to Q. David Bowers' account in A Guide Book of Buffalo and Jefferson Nickels, a note in The Numismatist in December 1909 mentioned a change in the design of the five-cent piece that would feature "the head of Washington." In fact, Charles E. Barber, whose Liberty Head design would be replaced by any change to the nickel, created several Washington-head patterns that were viewed as unsatisfactory.

In 1911, Treasury Secretary Franklin MacVeagh received a letter from his son urging his father to consider a design change in the nickel. Eames MacVeagh wrote, "it is the only coin design of which you can change during your administration, as I believe there is a law to the effect that the designs must not be changed oftener than every 25 years. I should think also that it might be the coin of which the greatest number are in circulation.&"

Thus prodded, MacVeagh let it be known that a new design was being sought. One sculptor and artist who responded to the call was Fraser, a student of Augustus Saint-Gaudens, of eagle and double eagle fame. When Fraser actually met with Mint officials, the Mint Director, George E. Roberts, indicated that a Lincoln head was needed.

Of course, the Lincoln one-cent piece had just been introduced, so there was little enthusiasm for a bust of the 16th president on yet another small-denomination coin. Fraser did prepare some Lincoln head designs, but by the latter part of 1911, he was writing enthusiastically about the possibility of an Indian head and a buffalo on a coin: "The idea of the Indian and the buffalo on the same coin is, without doubt, purely American and seems to be singularly appropriate to have on one of our national coins."

But Fraser's Indian was not going to be what was typically seen on American coins: a Caucasian head of Liberty with an Indian headdress. Instead, Fraser was taking the route taken a few years earlier by Bela Lyon Pratt on the Indian Head gold $2.50: Fraser's Indian Head would be modeled after that of a real Native American (a term not introduced until many years later).

Fraser's portrait of an Indian on the obverse was actually a composite of three different Indians, which the artist identified in the following quote, cited in Robert Van Ryzin's Twisted Tails and also in Bowers' book: "The three Indians were from Iron Tail, A Sioux, Big Tree, a Kiowa, and Two Moons, a Cheyenne. The Indians had come to visit President Roosevelt and stopped off in New York. During this time, I was able to study and photograph them. The three had combined features of the hardy, virile types of Great Plans Indian."

Article: www.numismaster.com/ta/numis/Article.jsp?ad=article&ArticleId=4762

[brentnvicki]

American Heritage Volume XXII Number 4 June 1971 Page 39.
Dewey Beard was speaking to David Humphreys Miller in an interview. It talks about a meeting with General Miles and how they became friends and how Beard met other high officials. After the turn of the century Miles summoned beard to Washington and introduced him to Admiral George Dewey, fresh from Manila Bay and the Spanish-American War. Beard later took the navel hero's surname, adding it to his old Sioux nickname, to be come "Dewey Beard" also know as Chief Iron Hail. In the the article it states "While in Washington, Beard was asked by the sculptor James Earle Fraser to pose for the bas-relief profile on a proposed new coin. When the Buffalo nickel was issued in 1913, the noble Indian profile turned out to be a composite, and Beard was never sure which part of it was patterned after his own features." Then the article ** the quote and states at the bottom of the page "Fraser's aboriginal models for the buffalo nickel also included Chief Iron Tail of Buffalo Bill's Wild West show, an Oglala, and Two Guns White Calf, Montana Piegan. Fraser's Memoirs of his early life appeared in "American Heritage, December ,1968.

I have the 1971 American Heritage, but have not been able to get my hands on the 1968 issue. If someone has it look for this article and see if it adds up. In this article "Echoes of the Little Big Horn" there is a painting of Dewey Beard.