Post by blondegilligan on Aug 29, 2018 18:28:03 GMT -6
I just found this forum to ask what is I suppose an unusual question. I have no Native American ancestry and so I wanted to seek guidance from the Native American community.
If there is another place folks recommend I post my question, please let me know.
To make a long story short, in the 1920s my (now deceased) grandfather (who was from what is now the Ukraine) worked as a young boy in his family’s delicatessen in New York. Whenever he got the chance, he would sneak into the cash register and pull out any coins that looked neat to him. What he liked the most were Indian Head pennies (which the U.S. minted from the 1850s to 1909). As a child he managed to gather about half of the 60 or so coins of a complete collection. He used to tell me stories about his coin collecting when I was a kid (in the 1980s and 1990s). Before he died, he gave me his collection of Indian Head pennies he had kept all these years, as well as some other coins.
Lately, I’ve been drawn to the idea of selling the other coins he gave me and purchasing the Indian Head pennies he never found, in order to complete his collection. I like the idea of learning a bit about coins, but more importantly I like the idea of completing a collection my grandfather started almost 100 years ago. I even thought about framing the collection as something to remind me of my grandfather.
My question: Is the Indian Head penny offensive to Native Americans, such that I would be better off just selling these (sentimental) coins?
I have not been able to find a good answer to this question online. My sense is that it may well be an offensive thing to collect and display. The coin has a Caucasian-looking woman wearing a feathered headdress that (my understanding is) would traditionally be worn by a man. Also, during the period of mintage obviously the U.S. government was doing a lot of bad things to Native American tribes. On the other hand, they’re coins, and arguably when the U.S. puts something on currency it does so to honor a particular group.
In short, I would really like to complete the collection and keep it. But if is offensive, I would not want to further such offensiveness, let alone display it in my home.
Thanks for any advice.
If there is another place folks recommend I post my question, please let me know.
To make a long story short, in the 1920s my (now deceased) grandfather (who was from what is now the Ukraine) worked as a young boy in his family’s delicatessen in New York. Whenever he got the chance, he would sneak into the cash register and pull out any coins that looked neat to him. What he liked the most were Indian Head pennies (which the U.S. minted from the 1850s to 1909). As a child he managed to gather about half of the 60 or so coins of a complete collection. He used to tell me stories about his coin collecting when I was a kid (in the 1980s and 1990s). Before he died, he gave me his collection of Indian Head pennies he had kept all these years, as well as some other coins.
Lately, I’ve been drawn to the idea of selling the other coins he gave me and purchasing the Indian Head pennies he never found, in order to complete his collection. I like the idea of learning a bit about coins, but more importantly I like the idea of completing a collection my grandfather started almost 100 years ago. I even thought about framing the collection as something to remind me of my grandfather.
My question: Is the Indian Head penny offensive to Native Americans, such that I would be better off just selling these (sentimental) coins?
I have not been able to find a good answer to this question online. My sense is that it may well be an offensive thing to collect and display. The coin has a Caucasian-looking woman wearing a feathered headdress that (my understanding is) would traditionally be worn by a man. Also, during the period of mintage obviously the U.S. government was doing a lot of bad things to Native American tribes. On the other hand, they’re coins, and arguably when the U.S. puts something on currency it does so to honor a particular group.
In short, I would really like to complete the collection and keep it. But if is offensive, I would not want to further such offensiveness, let alone display it in my home.
Thanks for any advice.