1892-3 Columbian Half Dollars

[villa66]

I’ll open this thread hoping, perhaps, that others will help give it its proper dimensions:

The American commemorative coin series begins in 1892 with the “Columbian Half Dollar.” (Although there is occasional talk of the gold 1848 “CAL.” 2½-dollar piece being America’s first commemorative coin. )

This first member of the “Classic” era of U.S. commemoratives (1892-1954) was coined in Philadelphia between November 19, 1892, and December 31, 1892, using—as the U.S. Congress instructed—recycled silver from “uncurrent subsidiary silver coins.” The Columbian half dollar was identical in size, shape, and silver fineness to the U.S. half dollars then current, and remains—in 2010—legal tender, spendable for a full 50 cents. Many were circulated, in fact, including the example below, from the look of it.

About 950,000 Columbian half dollars were coined with the date 1892, and were sold as souvenirs of the Exposition at $1 each. The 1st, 400th, 1492nd , and 1892nd Columbian half dollar off the presses got special promotional treatment. (The 1st coin struck was sold for $10,000 to the Remington Typewriter Company in a publicity stunt; it was, of course, an incredible sum of money at the time.)

America's celebration of Columbus was intended to be enormous, and important, and was so styled: the "World’s Columbian Exposition.”

For a variety of reasons—to show Chicago was back from the disastrous Fire of 1871, for one, and to force visitors to the Fair to see more of the U.S., for another—Congress chose Chicago for the Columbian Exposition over the competing cities of Washington D.C., St. Louis, and New York City.

Originally the Fair was going to open on October 12, 1892. But construction delays pushed back the opening of the Exposition, unfortunately—the financial Panic of 1893 had a real effect on the event—but the World’s Columbian Exposition did finally open in Chicago, Illinois, on May 1, 1893.

Admission for an adult was 50 cents, and the price of a ride on the “Ferris Wheel” was 50 cents. Anyone have an 1893 Columbian 50-cent piece, or other parts to the story?

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[Schrottsammler]

Hi villa66,

I have also one of this nice coins. My coin is from 1892 too. It was one of the first coins I added to my collection which costs much more than 1 Deutsche Mark.

Not a long time ago I have read an essay about this coin in moneytrend (I have searched ... the issue of the magazine was 4/2005). But there are not very much facts about.

Regards

Michael

[villa66]

...My coin is from 1892 too. It was one of the first coins I added to my collection which costs much more than 1 Deutsche Mark.

It's always fun to hear from someone who shares an enthusiasm. Thanks!

Here's something that might be of interest. It goes to the questions of: 1) the price-availability of the Columbian half dollars, 2) the relative price-availability of the 1892 versus the 1893, and, well, it’s just some fun.

Here’s the magazine’s cover, Hobbies from July, 1934, deep into the Great Depression, and more than four decades after the end of Chicago's Columbian Exposition. (By then, many of the original purchasers of the Columbian half dollars had died). And also from that 1934 Hobbies magazine, an excerpt from the full-page advertisement on the magazine’s back cover, run by the famous American coin dealer, B. Max Mehl.

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[villa66]

Fast trains called “Exposition Flyers” ran between New York and Chicago during the Fair. The trains hit speeds of 80mph (125kph) which—I’ll bet—seemed much faster in 1893 than it does now.

There were Columbian halves that took those excited train rides, almost to a certainty.

Here’s an 1893 Columbian with some wear, perhaps starting with a train ride back to New York. I can see it being pulled out of a purse or a pocket to be looked at, touched, and maybe passed around a small circle of fair-goers on their way home.

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[villa66]

Here’s another 1892 Columbian, but unlike the white coins that we’ve been posting, this one looks like it spent a quiet century or so in a dark corner somewhere in a big industrial city. Sulfur smoke and silver turning first purple and then brown-black:

But pretty nevertheless, or so I think.....

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[johndoe]

Ich habe nur einen Half von 1893, die Münze war lange zeit die älteste in meiner Sammlung und auch eine der Ersten. Ich habe mich nur immer gefragt warum es diese Münze sowohl mit Jahreszahl 1892 und 1893, gab, wie ich aus deinen Ausführungen entnehmen konnte, liegt das wohl daran, das die Austellung ursprünglich im Oktober 1892 stattfinden sollte, dann aber erst im Mai 1893 stattfand, oder?

[villa66]

Thanks for letting us see your 1893 Columbian,johndoe—a nice coin to have early in a coin collection. I got mine as a boy and had a lot of fun with it.

Why is there both an 1892 and an 1893? Convention has it that the 1893 Columbian exists because the Exposition started late. But...

My own feeling is that both dates would exist, even if the Fair had begun in 1892. Since the original start date (or so I have read) was supposed to have been October 12th, late in the year, the Fair would have continued into 1893, and the organizers were seemingly much aware of the profit-maximizing strategies available to them with their commemorative half dollar. They would have coined the second date so as to sell more coins—in my opinion, anyway.

What I am just learning, however, is that the May 1, 1893 start date for the Exposition seems to have been in place at least as early as the 1890 authorizing instruments. Which begs the question—not why is there an 1893 Columbian—but why is there an 1892-dated coin?

Well, I suppose it’s because that’s the anniversary year, for one thing, and because—again—it’s more profitable to have two coins to sell instead of one.

So what we seem to have is two commemoratives, one an 1892-dated coin celebrating the 400th anniversary of the event, and the other an 1893-dated coin celebrating the Exposition itself. (Maybe!)

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[villa66]

Here’s another coin whose issue was inspired by the same (400th) anniversary as the 1892-3 Columbian half dollar.

This large silver 1-peso was coined for El Salvador at the Central American Mint (C.A.M.) in San Salvador, as part of the effort to replace the mostly Guatemalan coins then circulating in El Salvador with a homegrown coinage.

This particular example is dated 1893, of a type introduced in 1892. The specifications are familiar to those acquainted with the LMU: 25 grams of silver, .900 fine. About 354,500 pieces dated 1893 were struck, but how many remain is anyone’s guess—much of El Salvador’s 1892-1914 silver coinage was exchanged at the new Central Bank in 1934 after the currency was stabilized.

But in 1893? Surely some of these big new “Cristóbal Colon” pesos made it to Chicago for the Exposition?

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[villa66]

Maybe one more detour before returning to the Columbian half dollars of 1892-3, and the World’s Columbian exposition?

Here is yet one more 400th anniversary commemorative, an 1892 50-centavos piece from Colombia—very nearly the size of an American half dollar—coined to the LMU standard for 2-unit coins: 12.5 grams of .835 fine silver.

Two varieties of this 1892 50-centavo piece—there are slight differences in size and device placement—were struck in Birmingham, England. The quantity minted is of interest: 4,826,000 (nearly identical to the 5,000,000 or so examples of the Columbian half dollar that were struck, the difference being that 2,501,700 of the 1893 Columbian half dollars were returned to the mint before being issued, and melted).

There is youth, and enthusiasm—or so it seems to me—in this portrait of Columbus. It’s a coin that’s easy to like.

The large quantities of Colombia’s 1892 “Columbus” 50-centavos were sufficient for half a dozen years. (Although they likely had a greater than usual attrition rate because of their novelty and their souvenir value.) When additional 50-centavo pieces were required in 1898, Colombia reverted to its traditional “Liberty Head” design.

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[Schrottsammler]

Hi,

because my scanner was in use I decided to make some more pictures

[villa66]

Thanks for the pictures . Easy to see, when you look, why the Columbian half dollar was sometimes called the “Ship on Wheels” coin.

And speaking of ships at the World’s Columbian Exposition, since they were at the heart of the celebration...in addition to the three replicas of the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria that made the journey across the Atlantic, up the St. Lawrence, and across the Great Lakes to Chicago, there was another European replica that arrived for the Exposition....

One of the masts often visible in old photographs of the Fair belongs to the replica Viking ship sent by the Norwegians—intended as a pointed reminder, no doubt, that Leif Erikson lived and died some centuries before Christopher Columbus was born.

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[villa66]

On the postcard below, some of the coins in the pockets and purses of the Fair-goers in Chicago that Summer and Autumn of 1893:

This German postcard was published about 8-10 years after the Exposition, of course, but American circulating coinage had—if anything—changed to become more like the postcard that it had been in 1893 (just after “Barber” dimes, quarters, and half dollars had entered circulation).

About the postcard’s garbling of the name of the “United States of America,” I note (with sadness) that it was common practice in the German Empire of the early 20th century.

I note also that the coins illustrated on the postcard became scarcer and scarcer in circulation as 1893 grew older—the financial Panic that year crippled the American economy.

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