Library
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May 29, 2017
Alabama was admitted to the Union as the 22nd state in 1819. One hundred years later, the Alabama Centennial Commission celebrated the anniversary with various local events. Perhaps envious of other states – legislation for a Maine centennial half-dollar was pending – the Commission lobbied Alabama Congressman Lilius Bratton Rainey for a half dollar of their own. Congressman Rainey introduced a bill asking for 100,000 commemorative half dollars on February 28, 1920. The legislation was passed later that year together with two other bills, each authorizing a commemorative issue: the Maine Centennial half-dollar, the Alabama Centennial half-dollar, and the Pilgrim Tercentenary half-dollar.
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May 22, 2017
By the early 1920s, the American film industry had concentrated in Hollywood. However, the industry found itself in serious trouble following a number of lurid scandals. Even in this era of silent films, there was also criticism of Hollywood for sexual explicitness. Facing the prospect of a public boycott and government intervention, the industry looked for ways to improve its image.
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May 15, 2017
Captain James Cook became the first European to reach the Hawaiian Islands on his third voyage in January 1778. After exploring the further reaches of the Pacific over the following year, he stopped in the Hawaiian Islands again and was killed in an altercation with natives. A century and a half later, Hawaii was a territory of the United States. A group of Hawaiian socialites set out to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Cook’s landing; one of their proposals was a commemorative half dollar. The proceeds were slated for the establishment of a memorabilia collection related to Cook’s voyage, which today resides in the Bishop Museum in Honolulu.
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May 12, 2017
Global gold demand in Q1 2017 was 1,034.5t. The 18% year-on-year decline suffers from the comparison with Q1 2016, which was the strongest first quarter. Inflows into ETFs of 109.1t, although solid, were nonetheless a fraction of last year’s near-record inflows. Slower central bank demand also contributed to the weakness. Bar and coin investment, however, was healthy at 289.8t (+9% y-o-y), while demand firmed slightly in both the jewellery and technology sectors.
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May 08, 2017
The proliferation of commemorative coins in the 1920s and 1930s had led to a number of abuses. First, many issues were produced at multiple mints over multiple years, leading to an excessive number of varieties for collectors to obtain a full set. For example, there are a total of fourteen varieties of the Oregon Trail Memorial half dollar. Low mintages of some of these varieties exacerbated the problem. Naturally, coin dealers delighted in the issuance of multiple varieties, which often proved extremely profitable for them.
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May 01, 2017
The National Sesquicentennial Exhibition Association was chartered by an Act of Congress in March 1925, tasked with organizing the world’s fair in Philadelphia to celebrate the 150th anniversary of American independence. Though the governing body of the fair was called the Exhibition Association in the authorizing legislation, the event came to be known to history as the Sesquicentennial Exposition, instead.
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April 24, 2017
The one cent coin was the first official coin struck by the United States Mint in 1793, but by the 1840s, it was an increasingly unpopular denomination. Because the copper cents contained no gold or silver and were not legal tender for trade, many merchants would not accept them or only accepted them at a discount. These “large cents,” produced until 1857, were indeed large and awkward – modeled after the British pennies, they were about the same size of a modern-day Susan B Anthony or Sacagawea dollar.
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April 17, 2017
Due to increases in the cost of copper in the 1850s, the US Mint reduced the size of its one-cent coin. The Flying Eagle cent, officially introduced in 1857, was the first “small cent.” It replaced the original “large cent,” which was nearly the size of a contemporary half dollar. However, the design of the Flying Eagle cent did not strike well in the hard 88% copper, 12% nickel alloy. Mint Director James Ross Snowden ordered a new design, which became the Indian Head cent in 1859.
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April 10, 2017
The Coinage Act of 1792 established the United States Mint and provided for the construction of a facility in Philadelphia, the new nation’s first federal building. The same law also established a decimal-based currency system in the United States, with the dollar as its cornerstone and “money of account.” The Mint building was constructed in 1792 and began production the following year.
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April 03, 2017
The Draped Bust dollar was the second silver dollar produced by the United States Mint. The design replaced the Flowing Hair dollar, which was only produced for a short time in 1794 and 1795. The Draped Bust design was part of a wholesale redesign of US coinage; all United States coins from 1795 to approximately 1807 bear a variation of this design motif. Only later would it become more common for different denominations to bear unrelated designs.