I have long admired the design on the Statue of Liberty commemorative half dollar. The only disappointing thing is that it's not made of silver.
It was. The 1982 Washington commemorative half dollar was 90% silver, as the Bill of Rights Half Dollar, which featured Madison. All of the rest of the modern commemorative half dollars are copper-nickel clad. All of the modern commemorative dollars have been 90% silver.
Meow read an article once about how many they sold of these due to pent up demand for commemoratives. Apparently the mint did not make many special things like this for quite a while or not very often.
Profits from the modern commemorative coins go to the national entities that get the benefits from bills passed by Congress and signed by the President. Those are announced amounts that you see for surcharges on each coin. The mint picks up the tab for advertising. There have been times when the sales were not large enough to compensate the mint for its advertising costs.
Exactly. This coin fills the commem slot in my registry set. I love the design, but it’s hard (impossible?) to find one which is nicely toned.
It's unfortunate the mintage on the half dollars is so large. Overall the half dollars are the best designs of the modern series. Being silver or not shouldnt mater, but the mintage is a killer
I like to collect all coins Statue of Liberty and this one is no exception. I think they did a good job on this one and the Silver commem Dollar coin. Nice pieces to keep in your collection!
I think the mint made these in clad to keep the price down for younger collectors. They were only $5 or $6. A few years later you could pick them up for even less. I wish they had made them in silver as well.
It was probably more about what the money was to be used for, the restoration of the Statue and of Ellis Island. They had had commemoratives in 1982, 83, and 84 so there wasn't that much pent up demand (that was probably the case for the 1982 Washington half dollars though). The statue was a well loved icon and it was being completely refurbished for it's Centennial. Not any more. If the profits from the sales do not cover the ALL the expenses, they now confiscate the surcharge money to make up the difference. I think it is kind of shady myself. The coins are sold with the statement that a certain amount from each coins sold will go to a specific cause, and then they don't deliver on that if their expenses are too high. The Girl Scouts Commemorative had that problem. They sold the coins with a promise of the surcharges going to the Girl Scouts and then the Government kept the money. The Girl Scouts got nothing. That is correct, the pre-sale prices were Unc $5 and Proof $6.50 after the pre-sale period they were $1 higher. And $2 of that amount went to the SOL Foundation for the repair work. The whole point was to have a low value item that kids could afford, and to also allow them to contribute. Today the clad half dollar commemoratives are $40. So much for the kids.
Meow recalls the article was about how huge the mintages with the Statue of Liberty coins. Something about how special issues during that time where slim, so collectors were more than excited about commemoratives than they are in more recent times.