page_title: Panama–Pacific commemorative coins
section_title: Barber's half dollar and quarter eagle
hierarchical_section_title: Panama–Pacific commemorative coins / Designs / Barber's half dollar and quarter eagle
caption_attribution_description: English: 1915-S $2 1-2 Panama-Pacific Quarter Eagle(1156-4329)
context_page_description: The five Panama–Pacific commemorative coins were produced in connection with the 1915 Panama–Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco. Struck at that city's mint, the issue included round and octagonal $50 pieces. Excepting modern bullion coins, these two gold pieces are the highest denomination ever issued and the largest coins ever struck by the United States Mint. The octagonal $50 piece is the only U.S. coin to be issued that is not round.
  In January 1915, Congress passed legislation for a silver half dollar, as well as a gold dollar, quarter eagle, and two $50 pieces: one round and one octagonal. The Mint had already consulted artists. Treasury Secretary William G. McAdoo initially rejected all their designs. Two of them, Robert I. Aitken for the $50 pieces and Charles Keck for the gold dollar, persevered, and their submissions were used. The half dollar and quarter eagle were designed by Chief Engraver Charles E. Barber, possibly with the participation of his longtime assistant, George T. Morgan.
  The coins were vended at the Exposition by prominent numismatist Farran Zerbe. They did not sell well, and many of each denomination were returned for melting.
context_section_description: To what extent Mint Assistant Engraver (later Chief Engraver) George T. Morgan should be credited for work on the half dollar and quarter eagle is uncertain; Mint officials and employees were not consistent on this point.  Assistant Director Mary M. O'Reilly said in 1936 that the bureau's records indicated that Barber was the designer.  Later the same year, she forwarded a statement by an unnamed Philadelphia Mint employee stating that by the very nature of Barber's and Morgan's long association (Morgan was Barber's assistant for 37 years), the two engravers would have conferred frequently, and that Morgan's technique is "very obvious on both sides of both coins". The employee concluded that "no mistake could be made, in my opinion, in crediting both men with the execution of these two coins.  I am certain that this is correct." Q. David Bowers, in his book on commemoratives, mentions the dispute, credits Barber on the obverses of both coins, and gives both men credit on the reverse of the half dollar. He asserts Morgan created the reverse of the quarter eagle.
  The obverse of the half dollar depicts Liberty, who is scattering fruits and flowers from a cornucopia held by a small, nude child. Behind them, the sun sets beyond San Francisco's Golden Gate, as yet unadorned by its bridge. Tom La Marre, in his 1987 article on the Panama–Pacific issue, pointed out that miners regarded the Golden Gate as a sign of good luck, and suggested it might have been better to depict it on a gold coin. The cornucopia, according to Burdette, demonstrates the advancement in trade brought by the canal, though the 1915 Report of the Director of the Mint states it "signif[ies] the boundless resources of the West".  The obverse is based on Barber's earlier work, especially his medals for the annual Assay Commission. A representation of waves lies between the sun and the date, representing the maritime themes of the exposition. San Francisco's mint mark, S, is to the left of the date.  The reverse depicts an eagle atop a Union shield, flanked by branches of olive, symbolizing peace, something Swiatek and Breen found ironic given the coin's issuance during World War I, and oak, the latter a choice which they were at a loss to explain. The 1915 Mint Director's report deemed the oak branch an "emblem of strength". Burdette notes that Barber's original design flanked the shield with two dolphins, representing the two oceans joined by the canal, instead of branches, and speculates, "McAdoo either did not understand the allegory, did not care for it, or simply did not like aquatic mammals on coins". McAdoo may also have been suffering from a surfeit of dolphins, as the dollar and octagonal $50 pieces bear them—the ones on the half dollar were removed and replaced by the branches.
  Art historian Cornelius Vermeule deemed the obverse of the half dollar "a halfway point between the designs on French silver pieces early in the new century and A. A. Weinman's 'Walking Liberty' for the half dollar". The fifty-cent piece bears the motto "In God We Trust", as do the $50 pieces, the first commemorative coins to display it. That motto was first used on U.S. coins in 1864. In the 19th century, it was not mandatory that the motto be used, but it nevertheless appeared on most denominations of U.S. coins by the turn of the 20th century. In 1907 and 1908, there had been many objections to the motto's omission on the gold ten dollar and twenty dollar pieces designed by Augustus Saint-Gaudens.  In response to the public outcry, Congress in 1908 passed legislation requiring its presence on any circulating coin which had previously borne it, as both gold pieces had until 1907.  The wording on the Panama–Pacific pieces was left to the discretion of the Secretary of the Treasury, but officials may have remembered the fracas. Swiatek and Breen suggested that those involved in creating or approving the design may have moved to head off controversy.
  Barber's quarter eagle (the first of that denomination issued as a commemorative) depicts, according to the Mint Director's repor
caption: The quarter eagle
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