DANIEL WEBSTER | Coins Designs for quarter, nickel vie for top honors

A state quarter and a retro favorite, the buffalo nickel design, were named among the leading candidates for 2001 coin of the year honors in the world competition sponsored by World Coin News.
The nickel design was reproduced on the silver-dollar commemorative issued in 2001. It won in preliminary voting as the most popular coin. The Rhode Island quarter topped voting for the trade coin of the year. China and Australia also had two coins each chosen in the first round of voting. France was chosen for its innovative "last franc," with the numeral 1 appearing to fall over the coin's rim.
An international group of judges will vote in the second round Jan. 6. The competition runs a year behind because many coins are issued with a date but in the next year. All 2001 coins could be considered only halfway through 2002.
It's being called the Missouri Compromise -- updated -- by both winners and losers in the controversy about the design of the 2003 Missouri quarter. In an unprecedented statewide referendum, nearly a quarter of a million residents voted, the majority picking the design by Paul Jackson over four other entries.
That design, showing Lewis and Clark in a boat with the St. Louis arch in the background, bothered the Commemorative Coin Advisory Committee because it depicted two historical eras.
The design, as finally presented by the U.S. Mint, riled the designer, who called it a perversion of his original.
His original had been called "unworkable" by the mint engravers, who produced three different versions in the course of the controversy. Jackson later said that the popular selection of his design should be seen as a mandate that his original idea be revived for the final design.
Jackson had drawn national attention to the dispute when he went to Washington to stage a protest, then returned to Missouri, printed his original design in color, and stuck the design on several thousand quarters. The secretary of the Treasury has the final say.