James Smithsonian was an English chemist and mineralogist; he is well known as a founding donor of Smithsonian Institution. It was originally organized as ‘United States National Museum’, but this name was ceased to exist as an administrative entity in 1967.

The Smithsonian Institution is one of the world's largest museum, education, and research complex. This institution allows learning and exploring everything from the origin of man and the future of flights to the history of art across multiple continents with more than 150 million objects, works of art and specimens to discover.

The United States of America had issued this commemorative gold $5 to honour and to celebrate 150th anniversary of Smithsonian in the year 1996. The obverse of this coin depicts the bust of James Smithsonian with date 1846-1996. The reverse of the coin depicts Smithsonian's sunburst logo and the word "Smithsonian.

Image Courtesy: usmint.gov