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

           I have always loved the series of American silver commemorative coins minted between 1892 and 1954. They began with the minting of a half dollar to celebrate the four hundredth anniversary of the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus. The obverse (front) of the half dollar features C.E. Barber’s portrait of Columbus after a portrait of Olin Lewis. The Columbian Fair Commission didn’t get its act together in 1892, so the Columbian Exposition opened in Chicago in 1893. It was a great world event.

          The first Columbian commemorative half dollar struck was sold to the Remington Typewriter Com-pany for $10,000.00 Today a mint state 65 Columbian Half lists for only $650.00.

          The Board of Lady Managers of the Columbian Exposition were not too happy about the fact that women were not honored numismatically. To answer their call, the Isabella Quarter was minted.

          Isabella was queen of a Spain united by her own iron will and that of her husband Fernando. Together they led the armies of the Kingdoms of Aragon and Castile in the reconquest of the Spanish Iberian Peninsula. In 1492, they drove the last of the Islamic forces out of Grenada. All of Spain was united under their rule.

          Their son and four daughters became the best educated royal children of all Europe. Ferdinand (Fernando) and Isabella had a plan to unite all of Europe by royal marriages between their children and the most powerful of Europe’s rulers. It would take a book to explore the ramifications of their master plan.

          Isabella was introduced to Columbus by her old confessor and undertook to make his voyage of discovery possible. The rest is history, and now the great Isabella was honored on a coin of her own. Only 40,023 Isabella Quarters were minted as opposed to 2,500,405 Columbian half dollars of which some were melted or found their way into general circulation.

          Forty-five years ago, when I was a kid, I could buy as many A.U. and E.F. Columbian Commemorative half dollars as I cared to for about a dollar. In A.U. condition today, the  Columbians can be had for ten dollars. The Isabella Quarters, however, are not so easy to come by.

          The quarters sold for a dollar at the exposition as did the Columbian Half Dollar. The half dollar seemed a better buy and the Isabella quarter didn’t sell very well. Only 24,214 quarters were distributed. Some 15,804 were melted by the U.S. Mint. Today an Isabella Quarter in A.U. condition sells for 300 dollars. In mint state 60 condition it sells for 360 dollars, 500 dollars in mint state 63, and in mint state 65 condition the Isabella quarter commands three thousand dollars.

          The nineteenth century closed with the minting of a dollar coin honoring the great Lafayette, the French idealist and nobleman who came to America during the American Revolution to join with his hero George Washington in the liberation of the thirteen English colonies from Great Britain. The coin was struck in 1899 but dated 1900.

          The obverse featured the conjoined heads of Washington and Lafayette. Once again it was Charles E. Barber who prepared the dies. The reverse featured a depiction of an equestrian statue erected in Paris to honor Lafayette. The whole thing happened at the same time as the Paris Exposition of 1900.

               These three commemorative United States coins of the nineteenth century were followed by another forty-seven types in the twentieth. The events honored with commemorative half dollars were: the Alabama Centennial, the Albany New York Charter, the Battle of Antietam, the Arkansas Centennial, the Bay Bridge: San Francisco to Oakland, the Bi-centennial of Daniel Boone, the Centennial of Bridgeport, the California Diamond Jubilee, the George Washington Carver-Booker T. Washington Commemorative, the Cincinnati Music Center, The Cleveland-Great Lakes Exposition, the Columbia, So. Carolina Sesquicentennial, the Connecticut Tercentenary, the Delaware Tercentenary, the Elgin, Illinois Centennial, the Battle of Gettysburg, the Grant Memorial, the Hawaiian Sesquicentennial, the Hudson, N.Y. Sesquicentennial, the Huguenot-Walloon Tercentenary, the Illinois Centennial, the Iowa Centennial, the Lexington and Concord Sesquicentennial, the Long Island Tercentenary, the Lynchburg, Virginia Sesquicentennial, the Maine Centennial, the Maryland Tercentennial, the Missouri Centennial, the Monroe Doctrine Centennial, the New Rochelle, NY Commemora-tive, the Norfolk, Virginia Bi-centennial, the Oregon Trail, the Panama-Pacific Exposition, the Pilgrim Tercentenary, the Tercen-tenary of Providence, R.I., the Roanoke Celebration, the Robinson-Arkansas Centennial, the San Diego-California-Pacific Exposition, the U.S. Independence Sesquicentennial, the Old Spanish Trail, the Stone Mountain Memorial, the Texas Centennial, the Fort Vancouver Centennial, the Vermont Sesquicentennial, the Booker T. Washington Memorial, the Wisconsin Territorial Centennial, and the York County, Maine Tercentennial. These coins would finish a type set at a cost of $13,105.00. This price includes the Isabella Quarter, the Columbus Half Dollar, and the Lafayette Dollar all in mint state 63 condition. The total commemorative set of type coins from 1892 to 1954 would be fifty face different coins.

          The reason for the 1954 to 1982 stoppage of the issuing of Commemorative coins was that the whole thing had gotten out of hand. Too many trivial events were being commemorated. Too many people like coin dealer L.W. Hoffecker manipulated issues like the 1935 Old Spanish Trail Commemorative. First of all, there was no reason for the minting of the coin in the first place. Hoffecker promoted it, for profit, with Congress. He traded in coins as Watkins Coin Company in El Paso, Texas, and monopolized and controlled the price and the issue. There were other outrages as well in the history of U.S. commemorative coinage.

          For example some events just seemed to go on forever. The Oregon Trail Com-memorative was first issued from the Philadelphia Mint in 1926. This most beautiful of Commemoratives was designed by the husband and wife team of Earle and Laura Garden Fraser. It featured a covered wagon on the dated side and an American Indian in war bonnet superimposed on a map of the United States on the other.

          It was a great coin, but the series went on and on and on. There was a total of fourteen coins from various mints struck between 1926 and 1939! When is enough enough already?

          There were thirteen coins struck to commemorate the Texas Centennial between 1934 and 1938. Eighteen different coins were made for Booker T. Washington between 1946 and 1951. From 1951 to 1954, a dozen coins were struck to honor George Washington Carver and Booker T. Washington together.

          The Arkansas Centennial was celebrated by an issue of fifteen coins from 1935 to 1939. The Daniel Boone Bicentennial coinage lasted from 1934 to 1938. It takes sixteen coins to finish the Boone commemorative series. It’s just crazy. The whole silver commemorative series from 1892 to 1954, by my count, consists of 144 different coins. 

          Actually only 2,003 sets of all 144 commemorative silver coins issued from 1892 to 1954 can exist, because only 2,003 of the 1935D, with the date 1934 added in the field of the dated side of the Daniel Boone Bicentennial coins, were struck. This coin and the 1935, issued from the San Francisco mint with the date 1934 added in the field with a mintage of 2,004 pieces, are collectively called “The Frankenstein’s.”

          This name was given to this pair of rare coins by coin dealer C. Frank Dunn. And I’ll tell you all about them next month.