User talk:Jdkriek

Morgan dollar
Hi, Jdkriek. Welcome to Wikipedia. My name is RHM22 (talk). You may have noticed that I reverted your edit to Morgan dollar; that was because the image you added was, in my opinion, slightly misrepresented. I'm certain that it was not created by the U.S. Mint, and I'm also nearly certain that it wasn't created by George Morgan. As such, it's probably not appropriate to use the PD-USGov image tag. That said, I agree that it would be better to use an image of Williams from around the time of the Morgan dollar, since she will obviously look more like she did when she sat for Morgan in such an image. When I uploaded the original image (the one of Ms. Williams at an advanced age), that was all that was available online. However, since then, Google Books has scanned countless of antique volumes, and I was able to locate an image of Williams published in 1892. It is unquestionably in the public domain, having provably been published prior to 1923, and I think it illustrates the subject rather well. Of course, I invite your opinion and feedback.

By the way, I'm an administrator on the English-language Wikipedia, and I will be glad to help if you have any questions. Wikipedia has a fairly steep learning curve, and I was only able to surmount it with the help of some editors who were already experienced when I joined. Please feel free to leave a message on my talk page if you'd like to contact me, or alternatively, you can add to any page to get my attention. My primary area of interest in numismatics, but I will venture into other areas as well. I hope that you will continue to edit and improve the project where you see fit. With best regards,-RHM22 (talk) 16:49, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

RE: Morgan dollar
Thank you I too have a love for numismatics. I found the image in a old newsletter about Morgans, but it did not attribute the creator, it simply stated "this lovely inspiration" and showed the portrait. I've seen Morgan's ability to sketch many portraits and gleemed it was his work while working at the mint, but I do understand this isn't proof positive. An image search turned the same portrait up again, but still no positive attribution. I agree that the image is misrepresented accordingly. Thank you for finding a proper image of Williams to more accurately reflect what she looked like as a model for Morgan with positive attribution - great find!

I will definitely seek your advice on help in the future. kriek 19:26, 24 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I also found that image a couple of years ago, but I was never able to find out where it originally came from. I'm reasonably sure that Morgan wasn't the artist, and if he was, he certainly wasn't making it for the Mint. As you probably know, Williams became a minor celebrity after people found out that she sat for Morgan while he was designing the dollar. Around that time, she featured in many newspapers and magazines and probably other things, so the picture of her is probably from around that time. I never could find any proof, though, which is why I never uploaded the image before. Hopefully we'll be able to figure it out some day!-RHM22 (talk) 15:10, 25 March 2015 (UTC)