It’s not a law as far as I know, just a tradition. The Mint and Congress have only ever put designs in place for people who have already passed away. This was strongly codified in the presidential dollar coin series. They required that for a president to have a coin, they had to have died some time before their coin was due. This meant that the series did not include presidents still living, even past ones.
You only put living people on coinage if they’re monarchs was the original thinking. In fact, we barely put actual people on coins until 1932. Up until then it was depictions of Lady Liberty and animals more than anything else. We changed that with the George Washington quarter as a commemorative short run, but it just kind of kept going… and now we’re trying to put a monarch on the currency. Oh, how the nation has fallen.
It’s not a law as far as I know, just a tradition. The Mint and Congress have only ever put designs in place for people who have already passed away. This was strongly codified in the presidential dollar coin series. They required that for a president to have a coin, they had to have died some time before their coin was due. This meant that the series did not include presidents still living, even past ones.
You only put living people on coinage if they’re monarchs was the original thinking. In fact, we barely put actual people on coins until 1932. Up until then it was depictions of Lady Liberty and animals more than anything else. We changed that with the George Washington quarter as a commemorative short run, but it just kind of kept going… and now we’re trying to put a monarch on the currency. Oh, how the nation has fallen.