The U.S. Mint is set to strike up to 100,000 $5 coins next year featuring Gen. Douglas MacArthur, a Little Rock native whose birthplace is now the site of a museum bearing his name in the capital city, as part of a commemorative series featuring five-star generals.
The coin is one of three the mint is creating in 2013 to celebrate the 132nd anniversary of the founding of the United States Command and General Staff College. All of the generals to be featured - MacArthur, George C. Marshall, Henry “Hap” Arnold, Dwight D. Eisenhower and Omar N. Bradley - attended or taught at the school.
Marshall and Eisenhower will appear together on a $1 silver commemorative coin. Arnold and Bradley share space on a half-dollar made of copper and nickel.
MacArthur lived at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., where the Command and General Staff College is located, between 1886 and 1889 when his father was assigned there, Harry Sarles, public affairs officer at the college, said in an e-mail.
The general returned to the fort in 1908, when he was assigned there, and remained until 1912. Mac-Arthur taught in the engineering school and was promoted to captain in 1911, Sarles said.
Michael White, a spokesman for the mint, said Mac-Arthur’s commemorative coin is the general’s first in the United States. After its liberation by American forces, the Philippines issued two commemorative coins in 1947 featuring Mac-Arthur’s likeness.
The new $5 gold piece will be at least the sixth U.S. coin featuring Arkansas or Arkansans.
Between 1935 and 1939, the mint struck commemorative coins for Arkansas’ Centennial, which were designed with “accolated heads of an Indian chief of 1836 and an American girl of 1935,” according to A Guide Book of United States Coins by R.S. Yeoman.
The second design of the centennial coins included a portrait of Sen. Joseph T. Robinson, according to the guide book.
White said the centennial commemorative coins were the only ones that featured the state until recently.
In 2003, the mint released an Arkansas 25-cent piece as part of its 50 State Quarters Program, and later a Little Rock Central High School Desegregation silver dollar in 2007.
The spokesman said the 2007 coin is unique because it shows only the feet of the Little Rock Nine alongsidethose of a soldier. The reverse of the coin is an image of the front of the school.
In 2010, Hot Springs National Park got a quarter of its own, as part of the America the Beautiful Quarters Program.
The MacArthur piece is the first gold Arkansas-related coin.
Stephan McAteer, director of the MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History, said the museum benefits from anything that promotes the general, but is otherwise not connected to the coin, which focuses on a differentera of the general’s life.
“If they were doing a fivestar general birthplace series I would have wanted them to put our building on there,” McAteer said, laughing.
McAteer said he would likely purchase some of the coins for the museum because he said they are well-designed. He said he was happy the image does not include MacArthur’s corncob pipe, with the designer instead opting for a portrait with nothing obstructing the general’s face.
“It appears to be very lifelike,” McAteer said. “That’s a very iconic image of him.”
Sam Dudderar, owner of the Coin and Stamp Shop on Main Street in Little Rock, said he wasn’t familiar with the coin, but that military coins are popular with collectors.
But Dudderar said the U.S. Mint’s commemorative coins are less popular because so many are struck and because they cost more to purchase from the mint than their metal is worth.
“The interest in them has waned because the mint has put out too many products,” Dudderar said.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 7 on 11/26/2012