Coin Monday: 1922 -- Into the Downtime

June 28, 2010
Written by John Dale

Downtime is just a dream for me right now; the cataloging staff spent the weekend working on the upcoming Boston ANA Auction, and it looks like two more working weekends are on the way. As appealing as the thought of downtime might be, though, there’s always the potential for too much of a good thing. In 1922, the U.S. Mint saw plenty of downtime, and as a result, only a few types of coins were struck that year.

In the wake of World War I, the United States went through a recession that lasted about half a year. The start of 1920 saw another economic downturn that lasted for 18months. During the downturn, the Mint struck a variety of denominations, but with less commerce came less demand for the instruments of commerce, coins among them.

Only one denomination was struck at all three of the active mints: the silver dollar. The 1922 silver dollars bore the then-novel Peace design; though first struck in 1921, the Peace dollars were not released for distribution until 1922. The Boston auction will have examples from Philadelphia, Denver, and San Francisco.

While double eagles effectively did not circulate in the U.S. by 1922, there was still demand for them in international trade, demand that was increasing as Europe recovered. The gold coins were struck on the two coasts: Philadelphia (represented in the upcoming July Summer FUN Auction) and San Francisco (in Boston). Most of today’s survivors were shipped overseas and spent upwards of 50 years in Europe; they were later repatriated in the 1970s and beyond, after restrictions on American citizens’ private ownership of gold were relaxed.

Across most of the U.S. there was little demand for small change, so no nickels, dimes, quarters, or halves were made. There was unexpected demand for one-cent coins, though, and the Denver Mint pushed through a batch of slightly more than 7 million pieces. While it was Denver alone that struck cents in 1922, certain pieces show no mintmark due to production errors, and these have become more famous than their regular 1922-D counterparts.

Beyond the regular U.S. coinage, the Philadelphia Mint also worked on a handful of other small-scale projects. For the 100th anniversary of the birth of Ulysses S. Grant, the famous Civil War general and later president, the Mint made commemorative coins in two denominations, a half dollar and a gold dollar. Philadelphia also kept up its trade in making coins for foreign countries. In 1922, it struck pieces for circulation in Colombia; Costa Rica; French Indochina (which covered modern-day Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and a small part of China); Nicaragua; and Venezuela.

It would be nice to contemplate downtime some more, but the Boston catalog calls. Back to it!

Coin (Friday and) Monday: World Cup Commemoration

May 28,2010

Written by John Dale

(With Memorial Day on Monday, next week's Coin Monday is appearing here early. -- The Heritage Blog)

It’s just about World Cup time, when the greatest footballers from around the globe put on the national uniforms to seek out glory. Like just about every other World Cup tournament, this go-round has had its controversies. The host country! The Thierry Henry handball incident! The anthem! (Though you’d never hear me complaining about the opportunity to see...I mean, listen to Shakira.)

All of these seem pretty trivial, though, compared to the controversy when the United States was chosen to host the World Cup in 1994. At the end of the 1980s, when the selection was made, there was no prominent professional “football” league (as the rest of the world understood it) in the United States, and the country hadn’t qualified for the World Cup since 1950.

The U.S. national team qualified for the 1990 World Cup, however, starting a streak of World Cup appearances that will continue in South Africa. Major League Soccer, which had its roots in the 1994 World Cup bid, is going strong and expanding. And the 1994 World Cup left a numismatic legacy for U.S. collectors as well: a trio of commemoratives.

The middle coin of the set is a silver dollar, a proof example of which appears in the June Long Beach U.S. Coin Auction. On the obverse, two players are pursuing a ball; no word on whether the player wearing number 7 is going to flop and get the player wearing number 10 stuck with a spurious red card. The reverse is a shared reverse among all three coins, with the official logo of the 1994 World Cup squarely in the middle.

The silver dollar proved extremely popular, with more than half a million proofs sold. The less expensive clad half dollar did even better, with a slightly greater number of proofs and more than twice as many uncirculated-finish coins in the final tally. Even the gold half eagle, notable for showing the World Cup trophy almost alone on its obverse, sold better in proof format than any commemorative half eagle issue had in the previous four years.

While the Dallas experience has evolved from World Cup action in the Cotton Bowl to Major League Soccer in Pizza Hut Park, the 1994 World Cup commemorative coins offer reminders of how “the beautiful game” was reborn in the United States. If the World Cup ever returns to the United States (2018? 2022?), perhaps commemorative coins will come again; if so, I hope the designs are worthy of celebration.

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Coin (Friday &) Monday: The Oregon Trail Commemoratives’ Overstayed Welcome

Sept. 7, 2009
Written by John Dale

(Ah, the end of summer... Bittersweet, certainly, but not so much as it used to be. I can remember, as a kid, that when Jerry Lewis sang "You'll Never Walk Alone" it meant there was just a single meal and a night to sleep before school always started the next day... Where was I? Oh yes! Blog post... Right... Given the long weekend, and the pile of work still in front of me, John Dale has consented to let the blog use his regular Coin Monday post for today through the long weekend, and for that he has my thanks. A numismatist of deep knowledge and many strengths, John Dale is not without a sharply honed sense of humor and irony - really - as this post on Oregon Trail commemoratives shows. Coin writing is not necessarily known for its humor, but the young man does a fine job with an interesting subject. Thanks again, John Dale, and I hope you enjoy. Happy Labor Day. - Noah Fleisher)

The history of the early or “classic” commemorative coinage of the United States has its good points and bad. Some commemoratives, like the various Oregon Trail half dollars, combine both. As has widely been noted, the design for the Oregon Trail half dollar — a collaboration between the Frasers, a “power couple” in American art in their time — is among the most beautiful in the commemorative series.

The Conestoga wagon design was done by James Earle Fraser, who was famous for monumental art and Western-themed work, such as his sculpture End of the Trail and the Indian Head or “Buffalo” nickel. Laura Gardin Fraser, whose design showed a full-length portrait of an Indian over a map, had crafted several previous commemoratives with subjects including Alabama, Ulysses S. Grant, and Washington state’s Fort Vancouver.

As a one-off issue, the Oregon Trail half dollar would be celebrated mostly for its beauty. Later circumstances, however, led it to become infamous instead. First, a batch of 48,030 pieces (later reduced by 75 coins melted) was struck in Philadelphia in 1926. So far, so good.

Then 100,055 examples were struck at San Francisco; this raised a few eyebrows, since it was the first time a single commemorative design was struck at more than one mint, meaning that collectors would have to pick up both the Philadelphia and San Francisco coins to have a complete set.

It gets worse: The authorization for the Oregon Trail commemoratives stated a mintage of “not more than six million” pieces, a quotation that is often highlighted; more disturbingly, the authorization did not specify where and when the pieces would be struck. It was a loophole big enough to drive a Conestoga wagon through, and the Oregon Trail Memorial Association, beneficiaries of the proceeds from the Oregon Trail halves, took full advantage.

Their initial request for 1927-dated Oregon Trail halves was rebuffed, since the 1926-S issue had not sold out. Still, the Association persisted, and in 1928 they wheedled another batch of half dollar strikings out of Philadelphia; the Treasury blocked these from release, however, until the 1926-S coins sold out. The 1928-dated coins stayed in limbo for five years, until the remaining stock of 1926-S pieces was melted, creating an artificial “sellout.”

It gets worse: Under the influence of a new distributor, Scott Stamp & Coin Company, all but about 6,000 of the 1928-dated halves were melted, and these were sold alongside a small mintage of new halves, struck in 1933 at the Denver Mint. Even more small-mintage issues followed: 1934-D, 1936, 1936-S, and 1937-D, the last of which was sold by the Association instead of Scott.

It gets worse: In 1938 and 1939, all three mints (Philadelphia, Denver, and San Francisco) struck Oregon Trail halves! In the first year, there were 6,000 such sets produced, plus a handful of coins for assay, or silver content testing; in 1939, that number shrank to 3,000 sets, again plus a few assay pieces. In August 1939, legislation prohibited the striking of commemoratives first authorized in March of that year, finally putting a stop to the shenanigans.

In the end, the Oregon Trail half dollars spanned 13 years and 14 distinct issues, a longer run than some U.S. coinage denominations (the two cent piece and twenty cent piece come to mind).

The lessons learned from the exploitation of the various Mints have influenced Treasury policy regarding commemoratives ever since. While collectors usually obtain either a single Oregon Trail half for a commemorative type set or all 14 for a date set of all 144 silver commemorative issues, a “mini-set” of the 14 Oregon Trail halves is another possibility, one that has been suggested as an in-between endeavor by cleverer heads than mine.

For those willing to take on the challenge, Heritage’s September Long Beach U.S. Coin Auction and October Dallas U.S. Coin Auction are great places to start!

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-John Dale Beety