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| 1920 Pilgrim |
United States
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50C 1920 PILGRIM
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NGC MS 63
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1920 MS63 Pilgrim Tercentenary
The 1920 Pilgrim Tercentenary silver half dollar commemorates the 300th anniversary of the arrival of the Pilgrims aboard the Mayflower at Plymouth in 1620. This was the first commemorative minted in multiple years and it was hoped the increased mintage would help defray cost associated with many of the celebrations planned around Plymouth and Boston at the time. After much hype sales lagged and many 1920 coins were melted to produce the 1921 coins. Many coins of both dates remained unsold and were eventually returned setting the mintage of the 1920 issue at 152,000 and the 1921 at 20,000.
The obverse representation of Bradford supposedly holding his bible would be the only such representation of a bible on an American coin and most experts believe it represents his journal "Of Plymouth Plantation" which today is considered by many scholars as one of the seminal literary works in American history. The Journal was taken from the Old South Meeting House in Boston during the Revolutionary War back to England by a British soldier and lost for a time until it was rediscovered in the library of the Bishop of London and after petitioning the church for many years it was finally returned to Massachusetts in 1897. William Bradford served the Plymouth Colony as the 2nd, 5th, 7th, 9th, and 11th Governor from 1621 to 1657 and is credited with being the first civil authority in the new world to designate a day of thanksgiving we know today as Thanksgiving Day. He is also reported as being among the first group of volunteers to go ashore to help locate a permanent site for the settlement which they named Plymouth in honor of the last place they left in England. Tragically during that first winter when returning to the ship from a trip ashore he found that his wife Dorothy May had fallen over board and drowned.
The reverse exhibits toning under the ship that seems to animate the heavy sea around the Mayflower creating a wonderful effect. William Bradford had set sail from Holland with the Separatists aboard the Speedwell and when meeting the Mayflower at sea she was leaking badly and it was felt could not make the journey. So the Speedwell's passengers moved to the Mayflower and joined the 50 colonists many indentured to the investors as Merchant Adventurers recruited to help establish the new settlement in Virginia. The Mayflower originally had negotiated permission to settle the northern part of the Colony of Virginia but after several attempts to sail south they were driven north by storm to the hook at Cape Cod.
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| 1926 Oregon |
United States
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50C 1926 OREGON TRAIL
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NGC MS 64
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1926 Oregon MS64
The Oregon Trail Memorial Association, Inc. of New York petitioned Congress to authorize the minting of the Oregon Commemorative half dollar to fund the placement of monuments along the trail. During a sporadic run 14 coins would be produced from the Philadelphia, San Francisco and the Denver mints between 1926 and 1939. Congress authorized that no more than 6 million be minted and by 1939 after the remaining unsold coins were returned and melted the combined mintage for the entire series was set at 202,928 with the 1926 Philadelphia issue accounting for 47,955 coins.
The reverse design depicting the oxen drawn Conestoga wagon was originally thought to be the obverse by the engravers James Earle Fraser and wife Laura G. Fraser. James Earle Fraser is credited with the obverse design of this coin and of the legendary Buffalo Nickel while his wife gained notoriety for her designs of the 1922 Grant commemoratives.
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