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Sheet of 4 Silver Half Dollars. They are:
* 1893 Columbian Expo with Extra Fine to Almost Uncirculated features.
Wiki:
The Columbian half dollar is a coin issued by the Bureau of the Mint in 1892 and 1893. The first traditional United States commemorative coin, it was issued both to raise funds for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition and to mark the quadricentennial of the first voyage to the Americas of Christopher Columbus, whose portrait it bears. The Columbian half dollar was the first American coin to depict a historical person.
The coin stems from the desire of the Columbian Exposition's organizers to gain federal money to complete construction of the fair. Congress granted an appropriation, and allowed it to be in the form of commemorative half dollars, which legislators and organizers believed could be sold at a premium. Fair official James Ellsworth wanted the new coin to be based on a 16th-century painting he owned by Lorenzo Lotto, reputedly of Columbus, and pushed for this through the design process. When initial sketches by Mint Chief Engraver Charles E. Barber proved unsatisfactory, fair organizers turned to a design by artist Olin Levi Warner, which after modification by Barber and his assistant, George T. Morgan, was struck by the Mint.
Some 5,000,000 half dollars were struck, far beyond the actual demand, and half of them were melted. The appropriation did not cure the fair's financial woes, as fewer than 400,000 were sold at the premium price, and some 2,000,000 were released into circulation, where they remained as late as the 1950s.
* 1923-S Monroe Doctrine with Very Good features.
The Monroe Doctrine Centennial half dollar was a fifty-cent piece struck by the United States Bureau of the Mint. Bearing portraits of former U.S. Presidents James Monroe and John Quincy Adams, the coin was issued in commemoration of the centennial of the Monroe Doctrine and was produced at the San Francisco Mint in 1923. Sculptor Chester Beach is credited with the design, although the reverse closely resembles an earlier work by Raphael Beck.
In 1922, the motion picture industry was faced with a number of scandals, including manslaughter charges against star Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle. Although Arbuckle was eventually acquitted, motion picture executives sought ways of getting good publicity for Hollywood. One means was an exposition, to be held in Los Angeles in mid-1923. To induce Congress to issue a commemorative coin as a fundraiser for the fair, organizers associated the exposition with the 100th anniversary of the Monroe Doctrine, and legislation for a commemorative half dollar for the centennial was passed.
The exposition was a financial failure. The coins did not sell well, and the bulk of the mintage of over 270,000 was released into circulation. Beach faced accusations of plagiarism because of the similarity of the reverse design to a work by Beck, though he and fellow sculptor James Earle Fraser denied any impropriety. Many of the pieces that had been sold at a premium and saved were spent during the Depression; most surviving coins show evidence of wear.
* 1946 Booker T. Washington with Almost Uncirculated features.
Per PCGS:
The 1946-S Booker T Washington is a high mintage issue that's relatively common in all mint state grades. The typical specimen has frosty luster and good eye appeal. The 1946 BTW's have long been among the least expensive of all the U.S. silver commemoratives of the classic 1892-1954 era, though in the ultimate MS67 and MS68 there are issues that are even more common, namely the Norfolk and Iowa.
* 1952 Washington-Carver with Almost Uncirculated features.
Per PCGS:
From 1951 to 1954, the U.S. Mint produced the George Washington Carver and Booker T. Washington Half Dollar. It commemorated the lives of George Washington Carver (1864-1943), an agricultural scientist and educator, and Booker T. Washington (1856-1915), founder of the Tuskegee Institute. The coin was the last commemorative coin made by the Mint until the modern Commemorative Coin Program began in 1982.
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Tag Words: Silver, Columbian Expo, Monroe Doctrine, Booker T. Washington, Washington-Carver,
ZC1955 RM
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