1892 was the 400th Anniversary of Christopher Columbus's exploration of the "New World." Because of this, the World's Fair, which took place in Chicago from October 1892 - October 1893 (although the Fair officially didn't open to the public until May 1893), was named after, and celebrated this occasion.
The 1893 World's Fair had many "firsts," including: Cracker Jacks, a Ferris wheal, Quaker Oats, Juicy Fruit, Ragtime music, elongated coins, stamps, and of course... commemorative coins.
There were 2 distinct types of coins minted for this. One was the Isabella Quarter (designed by Charles Barber), which, aside from being very expensive now had a fairly low mintage of around 40,000 - however, these did not sell well and a bunch were sent to the mint for melting, there were only around 24,000 left afterwards.
But that's not the coin this is about - it's too expensive for me
This is about the Columbian Half Dollar (also designed by Barber), of which many more were minted, and was sold at the fair for $1.
The Obverse:
The Reverse:
The obverse shows a bust of Columbus, which was based of a portrait that Lorenzo Lotto painted in 1512, although no one actually knows what he looks like.
Link for info and portrait:
http://www.christopher-columbus.eu/portraits.htm
The reverse shows the Santa Maria, above the two hemispheres of the earth and says "World's Columbian Exposition - Chicago - 189x"
There are two dates of these, 1892 and 1893. Mintage began in November of 1892, and continued into 1893 (hence both dates).
They were only minted at the Philadelphia Mint, with a limit of 5 Million, however, they did not sell that many, and the total amount, of they melted some comes to around 2.5 Million.
One interesting thing about these is that one can find, like the one I pictured, well circulated examples.
In order to fund the fair the sponsors of the fair took out loans, a number of half dollars were "held by banks as security against loans made to the Exposition"* - however, when they were unable to pay the loans they were dumped into circulation. (ya feel kinda bad for those who paid a dollar for theirs, huh?). But a lot of these may have general wear since anyone could buy them, and many people may not have known how to handle the coins to keep them in their pristine condition.
note: the lowest grade I've seen (on ebay) was Fine.
*
http://www.coincommunity.com/commemo...alf_dollar.asp
Software used: Photoshop 7 (I was going to use Gimp 2.6, but I didn't want to spend the time learning the new version, lol).
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