The American Innovation $1 Coin representing Connecticut honors the Gerber Variable Scale.
Joseph Gerber was born in Austria in 1924. Following imprisonment in a Nazi labor camp at the age of 15, he and his mother escaped to the United States and settled in Connecticut. While in college, he invented the Gerber Variable Scale, which many consider the most revolutionary engineering tool since the slide rule.
By the 1950s, the variable scale was one of the most widely used tools for engineers and architects worldwide. Though calculators and computers have replaced it, Gerber’s scale was integral to the scientific advancements of the 20th century.
- Special reverse proof strike minted in low quantities
- Minted at the U.S. Mint at San Francisco
