Edward Southworth Fisher

Some coin designers leave a long paper trail — a Mint career, a roster of medals, an obituary in the numismatic press. Edward Southworth Fisher left a coin.

He designed the reverse — the "tails" side — of the United States' World War II 50th Anniversary five-dollar gold piece. It was struck at West Point in 1993 and carries the dual date 1991–1995 to bracket the anniversary years of America's war. Beyond that single credit, the public record is thin. Little biographical information about Fisher is publicly available — his birth and death, his training, his other work, all sit outside the reach of the standard numismatic and museum sources.

We can rule a few things out honestly. He does not appear on the U.S. Mint's roster of staff sculptor-engravers, nor among the outside artists of its later Artistic Infusion Program. That points to him contributing this design as an independent artist rather than a Mint employee — the WWII commemoratives drew their designs from artists outside the building, and the Mint's own engravers then translated each design into the working dies. One catalogue (Numista) even records his surname as "Fischer," a reminder of how lightly documented he is. We would rather say all of that plainly than invent a life he may not have lived. This page will be expanded as more about him is documented.

What we can say is that his one documented coin design is a genuinely unusual one — and that's worth a stranger's attention.

The brief was old and simple: say victory. Fisher reached for the most famous shorthand of the war. A heavy block letter "V" sits at the center of the coin, flanked by laurel — the ancient leaf of a victor — exactly as you'd expect.

Then he did the thing nobody else has done on American money. Worked into the design, running along the laurel, is the Morse code for the letter V: dot-dot-dot-dash (· · · —). During the war that rhythm was everywhere. The BBC opened its broadcasts to occupied Europe with it, because dot-dot-dot-dash matches the opening four notes of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony — three short, one long. Fisher folded that wartime signal straight into the metal, where most people would carry it for years without ever noticing.

The result is the only United States coin ever struck bearing Morse code. He wasn't the first to think of it: Canada had hidden a Morse message — "We Win When We Work Willingly" — around the rim of its 1943–1945 Victory nickel, designed by the Royal Canadian Mint's Thomas Shingles. Fisher's touch is the American answer to that idea, distilled to a single letter.

His reverse pairs with Charles J. Madsen's obverse — the "heads" side — which shows an American serviceman with his rifle, arm raised in victory. Two Mint engravers then cut the artists' work into steel: Thomas James Ferrell the obverse, William Cousins the reverse. Read together, the two sides form one sentence — the soldier who won, and the word for what he won — with a small secret hiding in your hand for anyone who knows the code.