page_title: Oregon Trail Memorial half dollar
section_title: Reissue
hierarchical_section_title: Oregon Trail Memorial half dollar / Production / Reissue
caption_attribution_description: Award medal of the Oregon Trail Memorial Association (1926-1940, more or less). This one was presented to Howard R. Driggs
context_page_description: The Oregon Trail Memorial half dollar was a fifty-cent piece struck intermittently by the United States Bureau of the Mint between 1926 and 1939. The coin was designed by Laura Gardin Fraser and James Earle Fraser, and commemorates those who traveled the Oregon Trail and settled the Pacific Coast of the United States in the mid-19th century. Struck over a lengthy period in small numbers per year, the many varieties produced came to be considered a ripoff by coin collectors, and led to the end, for the time, of the commemorative coin series.
  Ohio-born Ezra Meeker had traveled the Trail with his family in 1852 and spent the final two decades of his long life before his death in 1928 publicizing the Oregon Trail, that it should not be forgotten. In 1926, at age 95, he appeared before a Senate committee, requesting that the government issue a commemorative coin that could be sold to raise money for markers to show where the Trail had been. The coin had originally been thought of by Idahoans, led by Dr. Minnie Howard, seeking to further preservation work at Fort Hall; Meeker broadened the idea.
context_section_description: After Meeker's death, the OTMA selected Howard R. Driggs, a professor of English education at New York University as his successor, and elected a new board of directors, which worked to clear the debt Meeker had accrued. Coins on hand continued to be sold. It was able to persuade President Hoover to proclaim the Covered Wagon Centennial in 1930, the hundredth anniversary both of Meeker's birth and of the first wagon train leaving St. Louis for the Oregon country. One means of selling coins the Association devised was a campus-wide drive at Yale University, alma mater of Association executive director Lorne W. Buckley, in October 1930 to raise money for Trail markers.  More than 600 coins were sold.
  Most 1928 Oregon Trail Memorial half dollars remained in the hands of the Treasury for several years after their striking, though the Association purchased an estimated 1,000 for sale to the public. This impoundment by the government generated interest in the coin collecting community—several letters to the editor appeared in The Numismatist, enquiring as to the coins's fate. One collector followed up with the Philadelphia Mint; Acting Superintendent Fred H. Chaffin replied that the coins were being held there for the Association, and were dated 1928. The OTMA had a financial crisis in 1931, and was planning to close its doors, but operations continued, with headquarters moved from its Manhattan office to Driggs's home in Bayside, Queens.  The Association marketed the 1928 coins as the "Jedediah Smith Issue".
  In early 1933, Driggs sought the issuance of more half dollars on behalf of the OTMA, writing to the acting Mint Director, Mary Margaret O'Reilly. and then to Treasury Secretary William H. Woodin. Driggs wanted 5,000 of the 1928 and 5,000 new half dollars struck at Denver (1933-D), proposing to exchange 10,000 half dollars dated 1926.  All the coins held by the government, including those acquired by the exchange, were to be melted. This was approved, and the pieces were duly struck at the Denver Mint, the first commemorative coins ever struck at Denver.
  The Association had turned to the Scott Stamp and Coin Company of New York to market the coins.  Scott was able to sell some of the 1928 half dollars. These actions have been interpreted negatively by numismatic scholars: Q. David Bowers alleges that Scott's representative, Wayte Raymond, proposed melting most of the issue to create an artificial scarcity, and that the company "desired to capitalize on the gullibility of collectors and their need to complete sets by having more varieties coined. Scott figured that if additional Oregon Trail half dollars could be minted with the date 1933 they could be sold effectively at the Century of Progress Exposition held that year in Chicago."  Swiatek and Breen noted, "through God only knows what manner of political manipulation, the Oregon Trail Memorial Association managed to obtain approval of a new 1933 Denver issue" for sale at the exposition.
  A total of 5,250 of the 1933-D were struck, of which approximately five were reserved for the Assay Commission and 242 were eventually returned for melting.  Bowers believes that the returned pieces were likely defective, rather than unsold. The Association dubbed the 1933-D the "Century of Progress Exposition Issue"; both the 1928 and the 1933-D half dollars were sold for $2 each.  However, the 1928 could be obtained for $1.75 by anyone who had recently bought two or more of the 1926 issues, and could be purchased for as little as $1.10 each by purchasing 10 of the 1926-dated coins.
  With the relative success of the 1933-D issue, the Association ordered 7,000 more in 1934, also struck at Denver.  These were dubbed the "Fort Hall, Fort Laramie and Jason Lee Issue" and were also sold by Scott, for $2. These also were not paid for by the OTMA, but were an exchange for 1926-S half dollars—the distribution figure of 83,055 for the 1926-S equals 100,000 for the OTMA plus 55 assay pieces minus 17,000 returned in exchange for the 1933-D and 1934-D pieces.
  The resurrected Oregon Trail issue becam
caption: Medal of the Oregon Trail Memorial Association, presented to its second and last president, Howard R. Driggs
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