Congressman Blaine Luetkemeyer is co-sponsoring a bill to have Mark Twain honored with a Commemorative Coin from the U.S. Mint.
A surcharge added to the coins’ face value, production and design costs, would benefit four facilities that celebrate Twain’s life. One would be the Mark Twain Boyhood Home and Museum in Hannibal. Curator Henry Sweets says a coin would be a great recognition for the author and his work.
If the bill passes, the coin will still be behind several others in line for production, probably no earlier than 2016. The Mint releases two such coins each year.
Sweets believes the coins’ design should include some mention of Hannibal, the Mississippi River and both the pen name Mark Twain and his birth name, Samuel Clemens.
The other sites that would benefit are the Mark Twain House & Museum in Connecticut, the Center for Mark Twain Studies in New York and the Mark Twain Project at the University of California, Berkeley.
Luetkemeyer says creating a Mark Twain Commemorative Coin will not cost taxpayers anything. The bill is also sponsored by Congressman John Larson of Connecticut.