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Original Tumblr Post: Coin Factoids
Coin Factoids
Aight, a quick note for Trigun Volume 2, Chapter 1. Disclaimer: I’m not exactly a coin expert; I just got curious and hopped down the Google rabbit hole. But here’s what I found.
This coin from the end of the chapter…
…is what’s called a Morgan dollar or a Morgan silver dollar.
It’s actually got a very unique design, as most of the eagles appearing on the backs of U.S. coins are either in a very different pose, or they have their feet spread wider and are far less concerned with anatomical accuracy.
Here’s the front:
According to Wikipedia, the Morgan dollar was originally minted from 1878 to 1904, which would make it very fitting for Trigun’s desert punk setting, since that point in time in the U.S. was the tail end of what we think of as the Wild Wild West. (It’s actually recently been re-minted, but that’s irrelevant to the discussion since Trigun was written well before any re-mints.)
So… the coins didn’t come up in the ’98 anime (as I doubt they intended to try and hash out everything with these twelve assassins at that time), and if they come up in Stampede, they’re definitely Season 2 material. That means I, someone who is functionally a first-time reader of the Trigun manga, don’t know all the details about the coins in the manga, such as whether everyone has the same type of coin or if each of the assassins has a different type of coin, or if Nightow even bothers to continue this particular plot device.
But I do know some of the imagery for this particular coin. (It’s… not that complicated. I just wanted to sound dramatic.)
The front has an image of Lady Liberty (artist’s rendition, not the statue in New York, which wouldn’t become a thing and proceed to overwhelm U.S. imagery of Lady Liberty until this coin had been circulating for eight years), who of course represents liberty, and the back has a bald eagle, which I think we’ve impressed on the rest of the world enough for most people to know we use it as a symbol of freedom.
Freedom and liberty; not that different of concepts. Not that complicated.
But the coin in the manga panel is split. It’s damaged beyond repair, no longer functional as legal tender and only really good as a novelty trinket or for melting down.
Which makes it a really interesting thing to give a man who’s been caged in a cellar for 20 years and is forced into the service of any sort of master.