I had a chance to attend CSNS -- only about 20 minutes from me -- this past Thursday and had an absolute blast! I invited my dad and sister along and had a great time walking around exploring. Spotted lots of very cool collections (too many to list them all) and of course an incomprehensible amount of coins for sale. In past years I'd attended with large wish lists of around 10x coins and quickly became overwhelmed with the plethora of options. This year, I had my sights set on a single coin, one of the keys of my Classic Commemoratives set: the 1900 (technically, 1899) Lafayette dollar. I looked through about 85% of the vendors and only spotted six of them of sale. It's possible I could've seen more if I'd asked each vendor if they had any; and there was a very small number of tables I skipped due to very large crowds. But moral of the story: there weren't a lot of Lafayette dollars out there. Similar to established pattern based on auctions I've tracked for the past few months, several were graded genuine/cleaned; couple were low MS but had some distracting dings; one was graded MS64 (and was of course selling for MS64 price) but visually appeared as beat up as a MS61 a couple rows over. But then the clouds parted and there in front of me was this absolute beauty, the one I'd been searching for.. It's definitely a lower MS, but it doesn't have those distracting contact marks or unattractive toning which seems so common for this issue. The most significant ding on the obverse, right in front of Lafayette's chin doesn't really take much away from the eye appeal. I wanted to write up some of the historical details about this piece and, as I've done in the past, copy/paste some snippets from the Whitman Commemorative's Guide, but I think @Lehigh96 already did a tremendous write up back in 2009. Thanks to the excellent photos there, I was able to confirm that my dollar is die pairing 1-B. Couldn't be happier with this addition to the set. Now I can start saving for the next super expensive key, the 1928 Hawaiian. Maybe by CSNS '26..? In closing, here is the song 'Guns and Ships' from the musical Hamilton. Every time I saw a Lafayette dollar at the show, I'd think back to this song; the way they yell "LAFAYETTE!"
The Hawaiian the one the one "old commemorative" that has held its value. You would not believe what ALL of them were selling for in 1989 because of an "investment grade" promotion. The values feel like a house of cards. Here's a Hawaiian I have owned for many years. The remarkable thing about the Hawaiian half dollar was that Congress authorized it at all. Hawaii was only a territory in 1928 and had no representation in Congress. Another good thing about the coin was that the distribution was mostly fair unlike some commemoratives were the issuing agencies or dealers "soaked collectors." The one thing that might not have seemed cool was that the Dole Pineapple Company hoarded a bunch of them. One of the Bowers' auction firms, I forget which one, maybe Bowers and Ruddy, sold them years ago. The whole auction catalog was one Hawaiian half dollar after another!
Dima, Well done on finding your white whale. For whatever reason PCGS doesn't have an image of my Lafayette dollar nor my Hawaiian Commemorative. So instead I will share this James Cook Medal. AU Details. Ding on the rim, Eimer 780 AG
Very nice. Looks better than MS62 to my eyes. I ran into some fun stuff on NNP regarding the Lafayette dollars a few years ago. They're done! Should we ship them? Why are you asking me? The very first Lafayette dollar went to the President of France. I've always wondered where this coin in. Hopefully a national museum there. Charles Barber for some reason thinks he's supposed to turn over the dies for exhibition in Paris. He says "are you crazy?" in that polite turn of the century way. Director of the Mint goes, huh? I signed something? Dang it, I should read those things.
Fascinating to read this little piece but very important piece of numismatic history. Thank you for sharing your sleuthing skills.
NGC began posting images of every coin they slabbed about 20 years ago. PCGS still doesn't post images of every coin and they only began posting more than just some of the coins just five years ago. So the vast majority of PCGS slabbed coins don't have images while the majority of NGC slabbed coins do. Another tidbit of trivia, most of the dollars didn't sell and the unsold coins were returned to the mint where they were melted down in 1945. Some dealers learned the mint had the coins and tried to buy them but they had been melted just shortly before they contacted the mint. They'd have been a lot more common today if the dealers had learned of them just a little sooner.
I thought so too. Especially in hand, it's quite lustrous. I thought it'd easily squeeze out MS62.5, but after a regrade, it came back same MS62. Oh well; still a beaut Exceptionally cool documents! Thanks for sharing
