October
 2002 Issue
By James C. Johnston Jr.
Photos by Steven Vater

            By the 1930s, the number of silver commemorative half dollars being produced was insane. I think that events meriting a commemorative half dollar should be of some real historical importance. Most of the time during the 1930s’s issues approved  by Congress were questionable importance at best, and in time, killed the whole commemorative program. The long tailed minages of the George Washington Carver – Booker T. Washington half dollars from 1951 to 1954 broke the back of the whole commemorative coin program. By 1954, the program was dead.

            No commemorative coins were minted between 1954 and 1982, because the program had been so abused. The 1976 Bicen-tennial quarters, half dollars, and dollars were not strictly minted as commemorative issues. They were in fact the regular coinage of the country for that bicentennial year, and are listed in coin catalogs as business issues not commemorative coins.

            To show how badly the commemorative coin was abused, I shall examine the year 1936. In that year, there were scads of commemorative coins to buy from the various commissions and banks which were selling them. For example there was the Bay Bridge – San Francisco – Oakland commemorative half dollar. Maybe this was an event which merited celebration, and the coin had the virtue of being struck from just one mint and just in one year.

            Not so the Daniel Boone Bicentennial commemorative issue of 1936 which was struck at all three mints. Also the Boone Bicentennial half dollar was struck in actual birth  year of Mr. Boone in 1934 when it was properly celebrated by 10,007 coins minted from the Philadelphia mint. That should have been the end of it, but that was not to be the case.

            In 1935, the bicentennial-plus-one anniversary of Boone’s birth, all  three mints minted Boone coins dated 1935. To further complicate the issue, these three mints also minted more Boone coins dated 1935 with a small date of 1934 on the reverse. At Denver, only 2003 of the Boones were minted with 1934 on the reverse. This is the lowest mintage of any commemorative coin. At San Francisco, a mere 2004 Boones were minted making it the second lowest minted coin in the commemorative silver series. Only the fifty dollar gold Panama-Pacific International Exposition coins of 1915 have lower commemorative mintages. 483 of the round fifty dollar coins are thought to exist and 645 of the beautiful octagonal fifty dollar prices. These coins feature Minerva or Athena, goddess of wisdom on the obverse (front) and her symbol, the owl on the reverse (back).

            The  1935 Boones from Denver and San Francisco with 1934 on the reverse were held back from the collecting market in many cases, and they were manipulated by dealers to the point that some collectors were paying as much as two hundred Depression Era dollars for the 1935 Denver and San Francisco Boone halves with the 1934 date on the reverse. Hence they were deemed “Monsters” or “Frankensteins”.

            In 1936 all three mints issued Boone coins just as they would in 1937and 1938. Boone’s Bicentennial lasted five years and ran to sixteen different coins!

            In 1936, a centennial coin was issued for Bridgeport, Connecticut. It featured the city’s most famous citizen, and one-time mayor, P.T. Barnum. Bridgeport was hardly a city of national importance and such a pretentious commemorative was silly, but so were many other commemorative coins minted in 1936.

            Three coins from all three mints were struck for the Cincinnati Mint Center featuring the head of Stephen Collins Foster. Cincinnati is not in the same musical league with New York, Boston, San Francisco, Philadelphia, or dozens of the other great centers of music. Foster had no historic connection with Cincinnati, and this issue was also silly.

            A 1936 half was issued in honor  of the Cleveland Great Lakes Exposition. An argument might be made for this coin, but the event did not ever begin to compare in importance to the 1933 Chicago Century of Progress World’s Fair or the 1939 New York World’s Fair for which no coins were minted.

            Another silly issue was the Columbia So. Carolina Sesquicentennial. Maybe an issue from one mint could be justified-by-all three mints? Worse still was the Elgin, Illinois Centennial issue featuring a statue which was never completed for the event.

            1936 saw the minting of coins honoring important events too. The Delaware Tercintenary, the Battle of Gettysburg, and the Tercentenary of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations were valid commemorative topics. In each of these cases, with the exception of the Rhode Island issue, each event was commemorated with a single issue from only one mint.

            There were several more doubtful commemorative issues in 1936. The Tercentenary of York, Maine, the centennial of Wisconsin being made a territory, a coin honoring Senator Joseph F. Robinson who had the good grace to say the whole thing was foolish, the San Diego-California-Pacific Exposition (maybe a tad more important than the Cleveland-Great Lakes Exposition, but not by much). The Long Island Tercentenary, The Lynchburg, Virginia Sesquicentennial featuring another horrified U.S. Senator, Carter Glass, and the Norfolk, Virginia Bicentennial.

            The long-tail series of coins, made very silly by their outstaying the period of their initial welcome, were also minted in 1936. Arkansas Centennial coins were minted from all three mints in 1936. Their total five year run would eventually result in a fifteen coin set. How long can you celebrate a centennial anyway? Until the bicentennial?

            Oregon Trail halfs, minted off and on from 1926 to 1939, were struck at the Philadelphia and San Francisco mints in 1936. This series would consist of fourteen coins by 1939. All three mints minted Texas Centennial coins in 1936. In all, thirteen Texas Centennial coins would be minted between  1934 and 1938. How many years does it take to celebrate a centennial?

Altogether 34 commemorative half dollars were minted in 1936 from the three mints, and I almost forgot about the two-hundred-and-fiftieth anniversary of the Albany, New York Charter! I’m sure you all remember that one in your history books! Right? I don’t think so.

            The cost of collecting all of these coins during the Great Depression was prohibitive and limited to a small circle of collectors. That is why these commemoratives today command so much money. Yet, when you look at their relatively small mintages, they are downright cheap. And they are, for the most part, beautiful!

     The reasons for most of the commemorative halves being struck was foolish, but the result is a fine collection of pure Americana. I think that you should collect them before people catch on to the fact that many of them are scarce if not rare.