A coin story; the Grant with * commemorative half

[Wihlborg]

The early silver commemorative series contains three issues which are well known and highly desirable varieties, the 1921 2*4 Missouri, 1921 2x2 Alabama, and the 1922 Grant with *.

 

Both the 2*4 Missouri and 2x2 Alabama issues came to be due to the greed of the commissions who lobbied congress to have the coins minted. They came up with the idea that if a small number of the coins could be minted with an incuse 2*4 or 2x2 in their obverse fields, collectors would want one of each variety for their collections, hence more money for the commissions. The added 2x2 and 2*4 represented the fact that Alabama and Missouri were the 22 and 24 states to enter the union.

 

When the Ulysses S. Grant Centenary Memorial Association began planning a number of events and memorial buildings in late 1921, they too lobbied to have coins minted to help finance their ambitions. The committee originally asked for 200,000 gold dollars to be minted with no mention of a silver half dollar. What was approved by Congress however was an act that allowed for 10,000 gold dollars and 250,000 silver half dollars.

 

Apparently, the earlier ideas of generating more income by minting an instant rarity was not lost on them, the only problem, how to make them different. You see, the Ulysses S. Grant Centenary Memorial Association could not come up with a single meaningful notation that could be added to their coins, so they decided to have a meaningless incuse * added to the obverse field of 5,000 of their gold dollars.

 

Somehow while the order was being filled at the mint 5,006 silver half dollars were struck with the incuse * in addition to the 5,000 gold dollars that were requested to be minted as such. To my knowledge no explication was ever given by the mint as to how this happened or who was responsible for the error. Even though this error created an instant and unintentional rarity, the coins did not sell out and 750 of them were subsequently melted, leaving a mintage of 4,250 coins.

 

Today the Grant with * half is considered one of the keys to the early silver commemorative set, and is one of the rarest issues to survive in mint state, with its rarity increasing as you move up the mint state scale, all due to an error at the U.S. mint that created a coin that wasn’t meant to be.

 

Here are examples of both the plain and with star varieties from my collection.

John

[HaydenTubbs]

Great post John.Very interesting and educational.

Hoping to win EZ_E's merc.s,eh =)

[Hoot]

Fabulous and informational post, John! Are both coins yours? Do you have a Grant gold piece? I have always found the design of these quite appealing.

 

Hoot

[EZ_E]

Great post John.Very interesting and educational.

Hoping to win EZ_E's merc.s,eh =)

 

Well, I might be able to scrounge up a slick Wheatie for the man.

[Wihlborg]

Great post John.Very interesting and educational.

 

Thanks Hayden.

 

Hoping to win EZ_E's merc.s,eh

 

No, actually I just had a little free time and thought I'd bore the board to death with a post about early commems.

 

John

[Wihlborg]

Hi Hoot,

 

Yes, both coins are mine. They are both are in NGC holders graded MS-65. I don’t have either of the Grant gold pieces yet, but I will probably pick them up after I complete my silver commem set.

 

John

[TomB]

Beautiful coins, John, and well written essay.

 

Is the Grant w/o * a PL coin? It's images make it appear to be such. The Grant w/* looks satiny. Oddly, I would expect the Grant w/* to more likely be a PL coin since there were so few struck from each die.

 

I have to admit that this is one tough issue to like for me. It is probably due to the fact that Grant's head is so large in relation to the cabin and trees scene on the reverse. The man's head looks like he's Zeuss or some other Greek god, looking down on us in our puny huts! Also, the relief on the obverse is so uniform in depth, also likely because of the trees on the reverse, that it is difficult to infer a three dimensional character. This is quite similar to the Franklin half obverse and the Ike dollar obverse.

[Wihlborg]

Tom,

 

Good eye! The Grant w/o * is slightly proof like. Not enough to make the proof like designation though. My scans of that coin leave a lot to be desired and I really should try to get some better images of it.

 

I would have to agree that the relief of these coins could have been much better. I wish all the early commems were struck like the Vermont half’s were!

 

John

[melmcbee]

Oh please bore me John. I love the history lesson. I come to these boards just for such great enlightening stories. I would have never gave that coin another thought if I ran into one but now I would have to check and see if it is the * one.

[Ed Daggett]

Thanks John, very nice read, great pics.

 

Ed

[spy88]

John,

 

As usual, you have provided us with an interesting topic and a concise well thought out and written synopsis. I was very enthralled by the historic information as you played it out for us.

 

Please do more!! Encore, encore, encore!