Letter
Dear Ms. Fore:
At its 21 September 2004 meeting, the Commission of Fine Arts reviewed designs for the Chief Justice John Marshall silver dollar. The preferences were as follows:
Obverse
Design # 20, a profile portrait by Charles de Saint Memin, was favored, but there was unanimous agreement that the arrangement of the inscriptions as shown in #19 was better and should be used instead of that shown on #20. The reason for using the portrait rendition shown in #20 was that it was slightly larger and filled the space better.
Reverse
The rendering of the current Supreme Court building, as shown in design #7, was preferred. There was some questioning of the use of the oak leaves at the sides, but this may have been due to the discrepancy between the line drawing of the oak leaves and the scanned graphic of the building.
Sincerely,
/s/Frederick J. Lindstrom
Acting Secretary
Ms. Henrietta Holsman Fore
Director, United States Mint
801 9th Street, NW, 8th Floor
Washington, DC 20220