A Tiny Medal Takes Center Stage on Football’s Biggest Night

The Libertas Americana is set to take center stage at this Sunday’s Super Bowl LX and this ceremonial “coin” is anything but ordinary.

The “coin” to be tossed at the Super Bowl this Sunday is unlike any other. Soon to join the Smithsonian’s National Numismatic Collection, this unique object is not a coin, but rather a small silver medal whose story begins with the founding of the nation 250 years ago.  

The National Football League’s (NFL) medal is a modern restrike of the Libertas Americana —a medallic masterpiece first made in 1782–1783 to celebrate American victory in the Revolutionary War. The front of the medal features a portrait of the allegorical figure of Liberty, and the back depicts an allegorical battle scene representing the fight for America's independence.  

This historic medal was the brainchild of Benjamin Franklin. While he was serving as an American diplomat to France, he personally commissioned the medal as the Revolutionary War was coming to an end. Franklin envisioned an inspiring medal that would commemorate the Continental Army’s victories at Saratoga (1777) and Yorktown (1781) as well as honor the crucial role of French support in America’s liberation from British rule.  

France indeed features prominently on the back of the medal; the nation is depicted as the Roman goddess of war Minerva, who protects an infant Hercules (America) from a pouncing British lion. The Latin message Non Sine Diis Animosus Infans (“The courageous child is not without the aid of the gods”) surrounds the scene, emphasizing the transcendent power of France’s aid to America.  

But it is the engraving of Liberty herself that makes this medal so historically significant and resonant today. Designed in Paris under Franklin’s direction by French artists Augustin Dupré and Esprit-Antoine Gibelin, the Libertas Americana’s Liberty became the iconic image of the founding ideal underpinning the new nation. This medal showed the world what American liberty looked like: a confident young woman,hair flowing behind her as she charges forward toward possibility and promise, unafraid of what is ahead. 

Beyond giving a face to American liberty, the medal helped solidify the practice of representing the new nation as an idea rather than a living person. In other words, the Libertas Americana showed what Franklin thought the nation should be like—a country governed by values rather than individuals.   

This image of Liberty became so important to the budding American identity that it was replicated on some of America’s first federal coins after the founding of the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia in 1792. Use of the image of Liberty established a paradigm for American coin design. While her look evolved over time, Liberty regularly appeared on American coins and banknotes—until the early 1900s, when she was increasingly replaced with historic male figures such as Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson. 

The Libertas Americana’s unique design distinguishes it from other major American medals developed during and after the Revolutionary War. Beginning in 1776, the Continental Congress began authorizing production of medals honoring significant Revolutionary War battles and officers in a series, authorized by Congress, that became known as the Comitia Americana.  

Congress ultimately authorized 11 Comitia Americana. Together, the medals codified an official version of the nation’s origin story, elevating a specific group of historic figures and battles that still appear inmany history textbooks today. But if we think of the Comitia Americana series as a record of milestones that led to American victory, the Libertas Americana can be best understood as telling the big story of American independence beginning with the date engraved under Liberty’s portrait—4 Juil [July] 1776.  

The Libertas Americana, though often considered part of the Comitia Americana series, was never formally authorized by Congress and thus remained a personal project of Franklin’s. In 1783 the medal was struck at the Paris Mint. Franklin then quickly began distributing the medals to American, British, and European leaders and dignitaries. As the Treaty of Paris was formally ending the Revolutionary War, Franklin was passing the original medals to those in power, both in America and abroad, thus giving a face to the aspirations of the national project.   

The medals were primarily made in silver and bronze. Franklin reserved the only two medals made in gold for the French King Louis XVI and Queen Marie-Antoinette—a grand gesture of American gratitude which Franklin felt had been in too short supply. These two invaluable treasures are thought to have been lost in the French Revolution just six years later. Still about 20 silver and more than 100 bronze original Libertas Americana medals survive today. One beautiful silver specimen is held in the Smithsonian's National Numismatic Collection, deposited by Henry Adams, a descendent of President John Adams, in 1900.  

In the museum’s vault, this historic medal lives alongside examples of all of the Comitia Americana, as well as hundreds of thousands of coins and banknotes that tell the story of the Revolutionary War, the centuries of colonial settlement that led to it, and the nation we have built since. This unparalleled collection of American money and medals is a national treasure and a durable record of our past. No other type of artifact can more comprehensively and effectively help us trace our national history year by year, battle by battle, milestone by milestone. 

As curator of this vast collection, one of my responsibilities is to collect objects that continue to grow our record of the past as well as objects that reflect the present—not just documenting what is new, but also how our history continues to shape our daily lives. The restrike of the Libertas Americana tossed at Super Bowl LX will become the National Numismatic Collection’s next acquisition. It was made at the Paris Mint in 2015 and is based on the dies used to strike the original medals. The NFL has additionally engraved the words HEADS and TAILS and the NFL shield on the medal’s surface, recording its active use at a major national event.   

By placing the Libertas Americana at center stage—or, as it were, the 50-yard line—of the Super Bowl this year, the NFL is recognizing the national milestone of 250 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence. My hope is that this tiny medal’s surprising role on football’s biggest night also sparks conversations in locker rooms, sports bars, and homes around the country about the importance of our sacred founding value—liberty—and why, like the metal it is made from, it is precious and worth preserving.  

Ellen Feingold is the curator of the National Numismatic Collection.