It was 5 o’clock and time for the sale of paintings at the auction house. The staff had been selling expensive items in a special auction for most of the day and was getting ready to sell the less-expensive artwork.
As I waited impatiently, I perused the art on the tables, hoping that I’d find something worth bidding on. In fact, I spotted two pieces: A painting on wood by folk artist Jimmie Lee Sudduth and a painting by Mexican muralist David Siquerios.
Another piece of artwork caught my eye, too. Inside a green frame against a white background were 10 tiny landscapes in a vertical row opposite 10 silver coins. The paintings had been done in a meticulous hand down to the trees, birds, sun and waters.
As I stood there marveling at them, I realized that the paintings had been executed on real coins like the ones opposite them. Each painting matched the size of the coin.
This was a first for me, and I was impressed. I looked for a signature of the artist, but found none. The paintings were probably done by someone who considered himself or herself an amateur, and had created these for the fun of it. It must have been like painting on the head of a pin.
I’ve been to enough arts and crafts shows where I’ve seen small paintings for sale, but none as small as these. The coins were foreign coins – the largest size was 5 cents and the smallest, 25 cents. I didn’t look closely enough to see what countries they represented.
Based on the materials used, the coins seemed to have been painted as fine art. Googling, I found others that were colorized with enamel or acrylic-based paint.
I came across several companies that painted the images already on the coins – or accented them, as one site noted. You can buy a pendant with an eagle in brown and white, an Indian head nickel against a blue background and a Kennedy half dollar with the presidential seal in full color on the reverse. The site also sold coins attached to other items (like a money clip) and coins from other countries.
The site noted quite prominently at the top of its pages that painting coins is not illegal. That is true. It’s also important to note that the U.S. Mint does not sanction the sale of colorized coins. The Mint “does not encourage, endorse, or sponsor products that alter the fundamental images depicted on its coins,” it stated on its website.
The Mint disavowed any colorized coins on the market that are implied to be its products, offering warnings about coins that include a $1 Barack Obama Presidential Coin, Kennedy half-dollar and Elvis Tennessee state quarter. The coins themselves were for real, but the coloring was applied by private companies.
The process for colorizing is generally common: The coin is cleaned and polished. Tiny brushes are used to apply enamel or other material, which is baked into the coin. It is coated in a polymer to protect it and then mounted in a setting.
Artist Andre Levy superimposes, a Brazilian who works out of Frankfurt, Germany, paints his own images of superheroes (Catwoman, Wolverine) and pop-culture figures (Waldo, Harry Potter) over the faces on U.S. and foreign coins.
While these coins were made to perhaps be used, the ones at auction were seemingly made to hang in a frame on a wall like any other painting.
