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The man on the coin may be still alive!... American coins seldom show living people ever since George Washington refused to appear on a coin because kings often put themselves on coins. But we sometimes break this "rule," and the governor of Alabama was the first. In 1921, Alabama's Governor Thomas Kilby was shown next to the Governor of 100 years earlier—William Bibb—on the Alabama Centennial Half Dollar. The first President on a coin while still alive was Calvin Coolidge in 1926.