Eight years later Brenner was in Paris, studying with the great French medalist Oscar Roty at the Académie Julian.

Brenner died in 1924 and is buried at Mount Judah Cemetery, Ridgewood, Queens, New York.

Roosevelt had learned of his talents in a settlement house on New York City's Lower East Side and was immediately impressed with a bas-relief that Brenner had made of Lincoln, based on the early Civil War era photographer, Mathew Brady's photograph.

Widespread criticism of the initials' prominence resulted in their removal midway through 1909, the design's first year of issue.

This is a nod to the rover's geologic mission and the common practice by geologists including a coin in photographs to document the size of objects.

In a 2000 article in Draugas, Lithuanian-American historical researcher Edward Baranauskas described this as a "fable" — one which Lithuanian numismatist Jonas K. Karys "spent many years exposing (...) as a fabrication".