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Presidential $1 Coin Lady Liberty Reverse

On October 28, 1886, President Grover Cleveland accepted the Statue of Liberty on behalf of the United States and said, in part, "We will not forget that Liberty has here made her home; nor shall her chosen altar be neglected."

She is the work of sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi, who enlisted the assistance of engineer Alexandre Gustave Eiffel, designer of the Eiffel Tower, to help him solve some of the structural challenges presented by creating a statue of such magnitude.

The Statue of Liberty was completed in 1884 and shipped to the United States in June 1885, having been disassembled into 350 individual pieces that were packed in over 200 crates for the transatlantic voyage. In four months’ time, she was re-assembled in New York Harbor, standing just over 151 feet from the top of the statue’s base to the tip of the torch her right hand holds high above the waters of New York Harbor.

Originally intended as a gift to celebrate the American Centennial in 1876, the Statue of Liberty was given to the United States as a symbol of the friendship forged between the new American government and the government of France during the American Revolutionary War.

The tablet she holds in her left hand carries the inscription "July IV MDCCLXXVI" in reference to the July 4, 1776, signing of the Declaration of Independence and the birth of the Nation.

There are 25 windows running the length of Lady Liberty’s crown, which is topped by seven rays, meant to convey both the light of the sun and the seven seas and continents of the world.

For millions of Americans, the Statue of Liberty was the first sight that their ancestors saw as they arrived in America after having left their homes in search of a better life for themselves and for their families.

To celebrate her 100^th anniversary, the Statue of Liberty was featured on a United States commemorative coin in 1986. In 1997, a close-up image of the Lady Liberty was chosen for the obverse of the new American Eagle platinum coins.

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