Classic U.S. Commemorative Coins
FOR MOST collectors, collecting by design type is preferable to assembling sets of all date and mintmark combinations. Consider Barber quarters; the series has three big keys or stoppers: 1896-S, 1901-S, and 1913-S. The least expensive is the 1896-S, which lists for $550 in G4 in this magazine’s pricing guide “Market Watch,” MW).
Between 1892 and 1954, the U.S. issued a variety of commemorative coins; coins designed to honor people, places, events, or institutions. Some of these had worthy themes, honoring people such as the prominent black Americans Booker T. Washington and George Washington Carver and events such as the centennial of the independence of Texas.
Others, unfortunately, celebrated less worthy events and/or people. The centennial of the incorporation of the city of Bridgeport, Connecticut comes to mind. The obverse of this coin features a portrait of the town’s best-known citizen, P. T. Barnum. One of Barnum’s famous quotes is, “There’s a sucker born every minute,” which is just cynical enough to have been voiced by backers of this commemorative.
It appeared that the Washington/Carver half dollars would be the end of the Mint’s production of commemorative coins, and for 28 years this was the case. The 250th anniversary of George Washington’s birth in 1982 changed things, however, and the production of millions of commemoratives to honor his birth signaled the beginning of a
