Mark Twain Commemorative Coins
Coin Description
Gold: Depicts a steamboat on the Mississippi River.
Silver: Features an assortment of characters leaping to life from Mark Twain’s works: the knight and horse from “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court,” the frog from “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” and Jim and Huck from “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.”
Gold: Features a portrait of Mark Twain.
Silver: Features a portrait of Mark Twain holding a pipe with the smoke forming a silhouette of Huck Finn and Jim - characters from the “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” - on a raft in the background.
The Story
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, who adopted the pen name Mark Twain, is one of the best-known authors in American literature.
Born in Florida, Missouri on Nov. 30, 1835, Clemens was the sixth of seven children. As a young man, he held several jobs, including printer’s apprentice, riverboat pilot, and miner, before establishing himself as a writer and journalist.
Noteworthy facts about Mark Twain include:
- 6,500 editions of his works exist in 75 languages.
- Nearly every book he wrote is still in print.
- “Twain” is an old-fashioned way of saying “two.” It is also a fathom, which is a unit of length equal to six feet. Sailors measure the depth of water in fathoms.
Several institutions in America preserve his literary and educational legacy.