Talk:1909-S VDB Lincoln Cent

1909-S VDB Lincoln Cent has been listed as one of the Social sciences and society good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.
Review: March 19, 2023. (Reviewed version).

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A fact from 1909-S VDB Lincoln Cent appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 13 July 2022 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that the US Mint released the 1909-S VDB Lincoln Cent (pictured) on August 2, 1909, and discontinued it on August 5 because it showed the artist's initials?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2022/July. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/1909-S VDB Lincoln Cent.

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Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Theleekycauldron (talk) 04:31, 6 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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Comment or view
Article history

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Reverse of the 1909-S VDB cent

... that the US Mint released the 1909-S VDB Lincoln Cent (pictured) on August 2, 1909, and discontinued it on August 5, 1909, because of the artist's initials on the coin? Source: April 2, 1909 release and April 5, 1909
- ALT1: ... that many coin collectors consider the 1909-S VDB Lincoln Cent (pictured) to be "The Holy Grail" in Lincoln penny collecting? Source: Professional Coin Grading Service: The 1909-S VDB Lincoln Cent has long been considered the “holy grail” when it comes to collecting this ages-old series. Nothing is knocking the 1909-S VDB Lincoln Cent off that pedestal and Many people outside of the hobby know it as "the 1909 penny." Lincoln cent enthusiasts often refer to it as "The Holy Grail."
- ALT2: ... that the first everyday American coin to feature an actual person was the 1909-S VDB Lincoln Cent (pictured)? Source: It was a revolutionary act: Up to then, the only figures on everyday American coins were allegorical figures, like Liberty. Putting real people on them, the thinking went, smacked of monarchy; even George Washington hadn’t rated such treatment.
- Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/McLaren MCL35

Converted from a redirect by Bruxton (talk). Self-nominated at 04:09, 18 June 2022 (UTC).[reply]

General eligibility:
New enough:
Long enough:
Other problems:

Policy compliance:

Adequate sourcing:
Neutral:
Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:
Other problems:

Hook eligibility:

Cited:
Interesting:
Other problems:

Image: Image is freely licensed, used in the article, and clear at 100px.
Freely licensed: Used in article: Clear at 100px:

QPQ: Done.

Overall: The page is not new but it was a redirect page transformed into article by the nominator. So we can say the page new. The primary hook is more interesting than ALT1 and ALT2. So Promoter should use the primary hook. Mehedi Abedin 17:02, 21 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I guess you could say it didn't make much cents :) theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/they) 11:16, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Why controversial?

The article doesn't explain why it was controversial to include the artist's initials. At least in modern times it's quite common to include some sort of artist's signature. Why was it controversial at this time in the US? 49.255.223.3 (talk) 01:08, 13 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The best we know, the Secretary of the Treasury at the time did not like the initials, although it's not clear why. Chief Engraver Charles Barber resented an "outsider" (Brennan) receiving the commission for the new design and he (Barber) might have influenced the Secretary, but from what I read it's not known exactly why the Secretary objected. I added a reference to a book that reviews contemporary newspaper accounts and Treasury documents about the decision (diff). Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) [he/him] 03:40, 13 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:1909-S VDB Lincoln Cent/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: TwoScars (talk · contribs) 18:17, 15 March 2023 (UTC) I will start reviewing this article later today. Do not hesitate to "push back" at my comments if you think appropriate—I certainly do when I'm being reviewed. TwoScars (talk) 18:17, 15 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@TwoScars: Thanks for the review Bruxton (talk) 22:16, 15 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

First look

Lead

Perhaps the sentence "Within days of the coin's release it was discontinued so that Brenner's initials (VDB) could be removed from the dies." could use a comma between "release" and "it". Microsoft Word is more "comfortable" with the comma.
The footnote

Done Should have the first word of the sentence capitalized.
Done Use complete sentences—the variety portion can be a sentence.
Done Either the citation applies to the entire footnote and should be moved to the end of the footnote, or the variety explanation needs its own citation.
Done The Duplicate Links tool highlights the San Francisco mint in the lead. It is Wikilinked twice. TwoScars (talk) 18:39, 15 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Done Can the lead be a little longer? Maybe two paragraphs?TwoScars (talk) 18:44, 15 March 2023 (UTC) I will work on this[reply]
Done The footnote "[a]" should be placed after punctuation. I prefer the end of a sentence. TwoScars (talk) 18:52, 15 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

All good up to here. The lead is much better—it summarizes the whole story, as it should. TwoScars (talk) 19:05, 16 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

InfoBox

Done I have not checked yet, but every fact in the InfoBox should be verifiable somewhere in the text with a citation. (I like to put the source in the InfoBox too, but comment them out so they do not appear. That can be helpful if someone tries to change the InfoBox without consulting the text.) TwoScars (talk) 18:52, 15 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Other

Done Not done Need "alt=" for the images of the penny. TwoScars (talk) 18:39, 15 March 2023 (UTC) I do not think it is a parameter in the Template:Infobox coin.[reply]
- That is a shame. We have the "alt=" in Template:Infobox military conflict and Template:Infobox military unit. TwoScars (talk) 16:07, 16 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Done The "Duplicate Wikilinks" count starts over after the lead. This means "Victor David Brenner' can/needs to be Wiki-Linked in the History section. Franklin MacVeagh can also be Wiki-Linked. Might want to Wiki-Link "Union" in the History Section for the benefit of our non-USA readers.
Done In the Speculation section, the sentence after citation 10 needs capitalization for the the first word "on".
Done The narrative often says "On month, day, year". (on August 5, 1909; On August 12, 1909; On August 11, 1909; etc) perhaps this could be reworded to not be so repetitive. I don't think you need to repeat the year every time.
Done It looks like you have a one-sentence paragraph at the end of the Speculation section. TwoScars (talk) 19:27, 15 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Done Some cities are Wiki-Linked, while others are not. Wiki-Link all the cities if possible.
Done In the History section a sentence reads "The New pennies were not issued...." No need to capitalize "New".
Done "Black Americans" should be Wiki-Linked to "African Americans".
Done "President Taft" should use his full name on the first usage, and it should be Wiki-Linked.
Done Somewhere in the text it should be explained (for our foreign readers) that the "Lincoln cent" and the "Lincoln penny" are the same thing—or at least use an (a.k.a.).
Done Charles E. Barber can be Wiki-Linked. TwoScars (talk) 19:42, 15 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Done Under Collecting, the beginning of each paragraph is repetitive. Perhaps the second paragraph could begin "McMorrow–Hernandez, also writing for Coinage Magazine....." Are they any other experts that could be used in the Collecting section? TwoScars (talk) 19:42, 15 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Done Use a "¢" instead of a "c" at the end of the first paragraph of the Speculation section. TwoScars (talk) 19:51, 15 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Second look

Done History section - need a citation at the end of the last paragraph, but actually much of that paragraph is already contained in the previous paragraph. The two should be combined with Taft's order sentence before the Brenner needing time sentence.
Done Speculation section - "On November 2, 1909,...." sentence is still all by itself. It needs to be moved to a paragraph somewhere. Maybe simply move it to the previous paragraph ending with "rare and odd coin", or as a third sentence in the Resolution paragraph.
Done Not necessary for GA: The photo of the long lines complements the text in the history section, but the long InfoBox causes issues. If you moved the photo of the public lines down to the Controversy or Speculation sections, you would not get the "sandwiched" text in the History section. TwoScars (talk) 19:42, 16 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Done The "On January 10...." paragraph in the History section begins with two sentences that have quotes from the same newspaper article. I prefer the way you cited, but I believe Wikipedia requires a citation after any sentence that quotes something—you need to cite the same source for both sentences. TwoScars (talk) 19:57, 16 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Done Wiki-Link newsboys to Newspaper hawker, in case someone is not familiar with the standard procedure for distributing newspapers in the early 1900s.
Done In Collecting section, third sentence, "Composition" does not need to be capitalized. TwoScars (talk) 20:17, 16 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Bruxton: This might be all I have. TwoScars (talk) 15:52, 17 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I appreciate it. I enjoyed writing the article. Bruxton (talk) 02:33, 19 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

All done—it passed. Well done! I added a footnote about something you and I take for granted: the mint marks. A novice may not understand the various mints and their marks. It was discussed in the lead, but not in the main section with a citation. The footnote's citation is the the US Mint web site, and it has not been archived—you might want to archive it. Cheers! TwoScars (talk) 16:30, 19 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Criteria

It is reasonably well written.
a. (prose, spelling, and grammar):

b. (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):
It is factually accurate and verifiable.
a. (reference section):

b. (citations to reliable sources):

c. (OR):

d. (copyvio and plagiarism):
It is broad in its coverage.
a. (major aspects):

b. (focused):
It follows the neutral point of view policy.
Fair representation without bias:
It is stable.
No edit wars, etc.:
It is illustrated by images and other media, where possible and appropriate.
a. (images are tagged and non-free content have non-free use rationales):

b. (appropriate use with suitable captions):
Overall:
Pass/fail:

(Criteria marked are unassessed)