February
 2003 Issue
By James C. Johnston Jr.
Photos by Steven Vater

           Since adopting the “New Style” calendar over the last several hundred years, January 1 has always prompted people to sit down and evaluate their own lives if not their very mortality.  This is kind of a strange way for a monthly column on the subject of numismatics to begin.

            As Dec. 31 draws near each year, I look back and evaluate the events of the previous 12 months. I try to look forward to the next year with some degree of hope. Like many of us, I also realize that we are yet another year older and hopefully another year wiser.

            We become aware of ourselves and maybe even where we fit into history. To that end, I shall share an interesting type of introspective coin collecting that a friend, Tom Lacey of Night Owl Numismatics, has brought to my attention. Tom told me that someday he would like to collect every coin minted in the world during the year of his birth, 1956.

            I told him that he was wise to have decided to have been born in 1956 and not 1933. If he wanted to collect every coin minted in 1933, he would have to include the 1933 $20 gold piece, which he would have a tough time getting for under $10 million. As he was born in 1956, he would have an easier time, because most nations had given up minting coins of silver and gold. Most of the world’s coins were then minted of copper, bronze, aluminum, nickel, zinc, and generally of base metals and were relatively cheap. The United States and a few other nations were still minting silver coins.

In my birth year, 1944, one-cent pieces were made out of salvaged cartridge cases. These were designed by Victor D. Brenner.	Nickel was needed in World War II. For that reason silver was used in Jefferson 5-cent pieces from 1942-1945. This makes my 1944 birth year five-cent pieces historically interesting. The Jefferson Nickel was designed by Felix Schlag.	The Netherlands 10-cent coin was also minted in 1944. Many coins of the Netherlands, its colonies, Australian and other countries, were minted in the United States during World War II.	This 50-centavo coin, also brought back home in my birth year by my father, was also minted in San Francisco.	My birth year was “Winged Liberty Head” or “Mercury 10-cent piece designed by Adolf A. Weinman.

             Still it’s an interesting concept, and I gave a few thoughts to my own birth year of 1944. That year was an active one for this most troubled planet – my father was off in the Philippines fighting Japan when I was born on May 29. D-day was a bit less than a week away – France was liberated in 1944. The greatest sea battle in the history of the world was fought between the United States and Japan in that year at Leyte Gulf.

            In 1944, the United States minted 16 different coins. There were Lincoln copper cents minted at Philadelphia, Denver, and San Francisco. There was also a “D” over “S” mint mark, which is now valued between $125.00 and $1,300.00 in grades ranging from Very Fine - 20 to Mint State – 65.

            There were three Jefferson silver-alloyed nickels also minted at Philadelphia, Denver, and San Francisco. The three mints also struck Mercury Dimes, Washington Quarters, and A.A. Weinman’s beautifully designed Liberty Walking Half Dollar.

            Great Britain was still minting silver coins, as was Canada, Australia, the countries of Scandinavia and many other nations. My favorite world coin, minted in silver in my birth year, was the Belgian Congo’s 50-franc piece featuring an elephant over the date “1944.” It is just great- looking in its simplicity.

            Peru minted Sol coins in brass, featuring its beautiful coat of arms. The last crown-size silver Sol was minted by Peru in 1935. The Philippines was provided with a lovely series of coins in bronze, nickel, and silver in 1944, a de facto celebration of the liberation of the islands from Japanese occupation.

The “Elephant” 50-franc coin of the Belgian Congo is the most striking coin minted in 1944.	This Philippines 5-centavo piece was brought back from the Pacific by my father James C. Johnston Sr. in 1944. It was minted in San Francisco.	John Flanagan’s “Washington Quarter” was in use in my birth year.	American GIs brought home millions of coins with the head of Britain’s King George VI, many minted in 1944, after the Second World War. They served all over the worldwide British Empire.	My uncle, Joseph I. Foss, brought back this birth year coin from Panama, where he served in the U.S. Navy.
Adolf A. Weinman designed the most beautiful of my birth-year coins, the “Liberty Walking” half dollar.

            These coins were struck at Philadelphia, Denver, and San Francisco. In fact these United States mints were striking coins for several nations and colonial entities. Australian silver coins were struck in the United States during World War II, as were the silver coins of the Netherlands and its colonies.

            By 1956, the world was minting far more coins than in 1944. The world in 1944 was a great deal more unsettled than was the world in 1956, which had come a long way toward economic recovery. Emerging nations were then coming into their own as coin-issuing entities, or were on the verge of doing so.

            Collecting coins of your birth year on a worldwide basis can be a real challenge, and this form of collecting will increase your depth of historic scholarship. If you were born in 1929, 1939, 1949, 1959, 1969, 1979, 1989, earlier or later, or even in between, you can become a definitive expert on your birth year. Collecting the world coins of your birth year has endless possibilities. So why not give it a shot?