page_title: Columbian half dollar
section_title: Sale and aftermath
hierarchical_section_title: Columbian half dollar / Sale and aftermath
caption_attribution_description: English: Excerpt from advertisement placed by the directors of the World's Columbian Exposition Company soliciting orders for the new Columbian half dollar. Millions were left over.
context_page_description: 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 by his assistant, George T. Morgan, was struck by the Mint.
context_section_description: Ellsworth clipped one article criticizing the new coin and sent it to both Barber and Warner. Barber responded angrily with a five-page rebuttal, and suggesting that the Chicago newspapers not print "the opinions of people who display a deplorable amount of ignorance and likewise seem inclined to say 'Stinking Fish' ". Warner reacted with resignation, stating that he had not yet seen the new coin "but I'll wager it doesn't look like the model". A major objection by critics was that Barber had lowered the relief of Warner's badge to ensure that the new coins met the standards of circulating coins and could stack properly; critics saw this as unnecessary as the coins were to be merely souvenirs, unlikely to enter circulation.
  A number of proof coins were issued at the suggestion of Barber and Superintendent Bosbyshell. Ellsworth was enthusiastic, intending the special strikes as gifts, but was forced to share them with Company president Higinbotham, to Ellsworth's dismay. The proof coins for the year 1892 represented the first hundred coins struck, as well as numbers 400, 1492, and 1892. The total number of proof coins struck for 1893 is less certain: R.S. Yeoman's A Guide Book of United States Coins states that approximately three to five proofs were struck for 1893; numismatist Ira Goldberg in a 2011 article gives the number as fewer than ten. The first coin struck in the year 1893, in proof, is in the possession of the Chicago Historical Society. The Mint gave consideration to including the Columbian half dollar in proof sets, but at the time it sold proof coins for only a few cents above face value, and it would have to sell the proof Columbians for more than $1 so as to avoid devaluing the uncirculated commemoratives. Mint authorities decided against a public sale of proof Columbians.
  With the New Year, the coins were dated 1893; just over four million of the authorized mintage were struck with an 1893 date, with the remainder dated 1892. A total of 5,002,105 Columbian half dollars were struck, with the excess over the authorized mintage designated for inspection by the annual Assay Commission. By February 1893, sales had fallen off dramatically. The Exposition Company deposited 2,000,000 half dollars in Chicago banks as security for loans. In March, Congress impounded an additional 1,141,700 half dollars to cover costs advanced by the government, such as the expense of judging exhibits and providing medals to the exhibitors. The Company could redeem the half dollars if it agreed to fund that expense, which it refused to do, calling the government's action a breach of faith. In return, the Company stated it was no longer bound by a provision of the 1892 act, which forbade the fair from opening on Sundays.
  Sales during the fair itself were promoted by such stunts as constructing a model of the Washington, D.C. Treasury Building out of the new half dollars, 20 feet (6.1 m) long and 4 feet (1.2 m) high. These coins were available for purchase, but could not be claimed until after the fair closed. In June 1893, fair authorities had half dollars stacked as a model of the Washington Monument, 22 feet (6.7 m) tall. When the fair closed in October, large quantities of the half dollar remained in the hands of exposition organizers, the Treasury, and the Chicago banks—only 358,645 were sold to the public at the $1 price.
  With the fair closed, the question remained what to do with the some 4,600,000 half dollars which had not been sold. Organizers did not wish them to be issued, to preserve the premium price paid by purchasers. Those remaining in the Company's hands were redeemed by the Mint, which melted them; the fee for this service was forgiven by act of Congress. The coins which had been impounded by the Treasury were offered for sale at face value beginning in October 1894; when there were few takers, they were released into circulation. A million coins held by the Chicago banks were also placed in circulation. Although 2,501,700 half dollars were melted (all dated 1893), this still left a similar number of Columbians in p
caption: Excerpt from advertisement placed by fair officials in newspapers across the United States
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