I tend to collect date / mint mark sets of business strike coins (i.e. every business strike coin in a series). As such, I've never really been interested in the early 20th century commemorative half dollars. However, I've noticed the Oregon Trail commemorative is a remarkably beautiful coin. So I was glancing through a dealer's web page and noticed the Oregon Trail commemorative was made in 1926, 1928, and 1934 -- there could be more; this was at first glance just looking through what he had available. I'm sure similar repetitions were made with other coins in the series. Why did they repeat the design at least 3 times??? Is there a good resource on these commemorative halves?
Don't forget 1939. A lot of information here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_Trail_Memorial_half_dollar
In my opinion, the Oregon Trail commem is one of the most beautiful coins in the entire series. Though it is stated that the design was a joint effort between James Earle Fraser and his wife, Laura Gardin Fraser, there are some people who believe that Laura, a very talented sculptor in her own right, designed the coin by herself. I guess we'll never know! Chris
Pretty much. Fortunately, we're beneficiaries of that greed in that there are lots of Oregon Trail commems available for the type collector, and a nice date/mint run (14 coins) for those who want that approach. Ditto the Texas commem (13). There are other early commems that have extended runs that have lesser quality designs, too (Boone, Arkansas, BTW, Washington-Carver).
