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Buffalo Nickel
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Ramon D. Forbes, NUMISMATIC NOTES in Philatelic West (Lincoln NE), Nebraska Philatelic Society, 1918—
I wonder how many of the readers of Philatelic West who carry Buffalo nickels in [their] pockets realize that they have the likeness of one of Uncle Sam's fighting men in their possession.
Corporal Robert G. Harper, who posed for the Indian head of the buffalo nickel, has arrived at Camp Sherman, and has been assigned to the 309th Engineers [as a camoufleur]. Harper, of French-Indian descent, was born in the Mohawk Valley in northern New York, answered the call of the West and spent many years on the Western plains. When James Earle Frazer of New York received the commission to execute the design for the new nickel, Harper was secured as a model.…
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NICKEL "HEAD" QUITS POSING, Model for Coin Will Aid in Plastic Surgery, in Painesville Telegraph (Painesville OH) August 6, 1930, p. 3—
The "Buffalo Nickel Indian"—Robert G. Harper—has turned from a career of modeling for artists to helping plastic surgery within the reach of every man.
Harper, former local high school athlete and World War camouflage artist, has left Yale Art School, where he posed for sculpture classes, to become a "Plastic Surgeon's Plastic Expert" in the staff of the New York City Health Department, which hopes to bring such operations within the means of the average man.
Although not an Indian [sic], Harper's appearance fulfills the common impression of an American Indian. In addition to posing for the head of the Indian on the five-cent piece, Harper has posed for many noted statues.
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| News photograph of Robert G. Harper |
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'FORGOTTEN MAN' ON NICKEL PAYS VISIT TO BINGHAMTON, in
Binghamton (NY)
Press and Sun-Bulletin, September 12, 1938, p. 5—
The man who claims to be behind the face on the disappearing Buffalo nickel gave Binghamton a quick once-over Saturday afternoon.
He is Robert G. Harper, World War veteran, model and sculptor, who stopped off between trains at the Lackawanna station while en route to the veterans' hospital at Bath.
"It's a funny thing," he said, "here's the place I was born, and I haven't been here in years. My birthplace was an old Mohawk Indian reservation, near Union, a site which now is occupied by an Endicott Johnson factory."
His grandmother and mother, he said, were full-blooded Mohawk Indians.
"Not only were my features the most prominent on the nickel," Mr. Harper said, "but I also used for the statue of a running soldier right here in Binghamton at the end of Memorial Bridge [on a war memorial sculpture titled "The Skirmisher" by Robert Ingersoll Aiken]"…
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| Robert Ingersoll Aiken, The Skirmisher |
NOTE: It is sometimes claimed that the profile on the Buffalo nickel is
not that of Robert G. Harper, but of another Native American, named
Wolf Robe.
RELATED LINKS
Dazzle Camouflage: What is it and how did it work? / Nature, Art, and Camouflage / Art, Women's Rights, and Camouflage / Embedded Figures, Art, and Camouflage / Art, Gestalt, and Camouflage / Optical science meets visual art / Disruption versus dazzle / Chicanery and conspicuousness / Under the big top at Sims' circus
