I was at a coin show (local) this past Sunday, when I came upon this set from 1998. I like the way the coin is packaged but what really intrigued me was the name on the on the packaging........ Crispus Attucks was a runaway slave who was killed during an event known as the Boston Massacre. He is purported to have been the first casualty of the American Revolution. His death (along with five of his fellows) became a rallying cry for patriots, pamphleteers and propagandists and furthered tensions between the British and colonial Americans. As a young person I can recall seeing James Wells Champneys' painting of the occurrence..... Some more pictures of the coin and packaging....... The Black Revolutionary War Patriots Commemorative Silver Dollars were authorized as part of the larger United States Commemorative Coin Act of 1996 (Public Law 104-329). Under the law, a maximum of 500,000 of the coins were to be struck across all product options from the US Mint. On the obverse, a portrait of the Black Revolutionary War Patriot Crispus Attucks is shown, as designed by John Mercanti. Also shown are the inscriptions of CRISPUS ATTUCKS, 1723-1770, LIBERTY, IN GOD WE TRUST, 1998 and the US Mint’s facility in San Francisco’s mintmark of ‘S’. The reverse shows an image of the proposed Black Patriots Memorial to be featured on the National Mall of Washington, D.C. The design was completed by Ed Dwight and also shows the inscriptions of UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, E PLURIBUS UNUM and ONE DOLLAR. Surcharges placed on the sale of each of these coins was to be used for the establishment of an endowment to support the construction of a Black Revolutionary War Patriots Memorial. (To this date the construction of the memorial itself remains in limbo )
I try to go there once a month. It's hit-or-miss many times but I have scored there more often than not. Also it's a great place to buy junk silver cheap. Plus it gives me an excuse to visit my sister who lives out in Suffolk county after I get done looking for bargains.
So in 1998 they had almost $2.5 million in an endowment for building that memorial, half of it collected from coin collectors. I wonder how much they have now.
It's crossed my mind as well...... http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/aug/10/mall-monument-to-black-patriots-gets-another-shot/ http://www.libertyfunddc.org/
