Featured 1923-S Monroe Doctrine Half Dollar

President Monroe's image appeared on some dollar-size tokens at the same time, some mentioning the Monroe Doctrine, and these made appearances in films.



President James Monroe Token - Bird of Paradise
Specs: White metal, 35mm, 9.28gm
Obverse:
President James Monroe facing half left, no text
Reverse:
Bird of Paradise and man kneeling in temple surrounded by eight-pointed rounded star, no text
This token was supposedly made for film studio use.

This token appeared in the following films:


Atom Man vs. Superman (1950)


Gun Duel at Durango (1957)

This token references the Monroe Doctrine Centennial and was produced by the Los Angeles Rubber Stamp Company which, among other things, made film prop coins for studios.


President James Monroe Token - Los Angeles Rubber Stamp Company
Specs: Aluminum, 35mm, 3.87gm
Obverse:
President James Monroe facing half left
COMPLIMENTS OF / LOS ANGELES RUBBER STAMP CO.
Reverse:
Los Angeles city emblem with flag, bear, eagle, castle, lion
MONROE DOCTRONE (sic) CENTENNIAL 1923 (The token misspells "doctrine")
STADIUM, LOS ANGELES. CALIF.
CITY OF LOS ANGELES / FOUNDED 1781

This token appeared in the following films:


Kim (1950)

 

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“The subject of this commemorative is a worthy one, but rather oddly it was sponsored by the motion picture industry rather than some patriotic organization. The explanation is that the ‘movies’ were sponsoring the ‘First Annual American Historical Revue and Motion Picture Industry Exposition’ during June 1923 with the Monroe Doctrine centennial being featured. The proceeds from the sale of the coins was to finance this project. However, by this time the motion picture industry was well advanced and had produced many fine pictures (several of them in 1923) which were also money makers, and since many of the coins were placed in circulation at face, I suspect that the underlying idea was not so much to obtain money as to obtain ‘good’ publicity. Even back then, there were people who thought motion pictures should be less entertaining and more educational and uplifting. The words LOS ANGELES on the coin refer to where the exposition was held.

Some years ago I called attention to the similarity between the reverse design on the Monroe Doctrine commemorative and that of a Pan-American Exposition medal. The medal bears the official seal of the Exposition by Ralph [sic] Beck. Mr. Beck complained to the Mint at the time of the coin’s release that Mr. Beach had used his symbolic design of North and South America but it was denied. Nevertheless, the similarity seems too striking to be mere coincidence. Perhaps the explanation is that the sculptor of the Monroe doctrine coin had seen the Pan-American seal some years before and carried it in his subconscious memory. Ideas are built on ideas. A trial piece exists in copper. The reverse on an oversized copper planchet also exists.”12

12 United States Commemorative Coinage, 2nd ed., Arlie R. Slabaugh, Wisc.: Whitman Publishing Co., 1975, p. 54-55.

“. . . In May and June 1923, 274,077 Monroe Doctrine half dollars were struck and subsequently sent to the Los Angeles Clearing House, which, as noted, obtained them for face value (plus reimbursement for the cost of making the dies). The coins were offered at $1 each and were distributed through banks, by mail, and other means, but not significantly through the so-called First Annual American Historical Revue and Motion Picture Industry Exposition, and event which history seems to have forgotten since.2

While it is certain that thousands of pieces were sold at a premium for $1 each, by and large the sales effort was a failure, and soon thereafter ‘nearly all went into circulation at face value,’1 a situation which certainly gained no friends among those who paid $1 each for specimens.

Fred Woodson, a California banker who was also an active coin collector during the 1930s, recalled that such pieces were common in pocket change and were frequently received at tellers’ windows. He amassed a small hoard of pieces in this manner. Graded by the author in the late 1970s the coins were found to be mostly in the AU-55 to MS-60 category.

A Childhood Experience

In an interview with the author, veteran rare coin dealer John J. Ford, Jr. told of an experience he had in his youth:2

‘I was born in Hollywood, California. My father had moved out there in the early 1920s and was quite flush with money as he was involved with the United Artists film people–Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Sr.–as a money raiser or money man or something. Anyway, he walked into a bank in 1923 and was induced to buy 25 Monroe Doctrine Centennial half dollars. They were in little white envelopes and they cost a buck apiece. As I remember, they had some, but not much, printing on them. Later, when I was growing up in New York, he had a bureau in his bedroom. This had drawers on the top for nicknacks, ties, and handkerchiefs, with deeper drawers in the bottom for other things.

In the top drawers he kept his jewelry, cufflinks, and tie pins and things, and that’s where he had these half dollars in their envelopes in a little pile.

‘We moved to New York about 1926 because in 1925-1926 he had some business misfortune in California. So, our family had these commemoratives, but I didn’t know what they were. I was only two years old at the time. By 1932, when the Depression got really bad, we were living in Jackson Heights in Queens, which is about four or five miles from New York City. My father’s partner had committed suicide in 1929, and my father was wiped out; he was really scrounging. Money was very, very tight in 1932, when I was eight years old. I went to a parochial school, St. Joan of Arc, and on the way home from school there was a German bakery, and we used to buy our bread and rolls there. When my mother finally ran out of money, she discovered these Monroe Doctrine half dollars still in their envelopes. She went to the store to buy bread and other baked goods with the coins. In those days you could buy two buns for a nickel and a loaf of bread for six cents, and rolls were three for or four for a nickel. Money went a long way. The only problem was my mother had a lot of trouble with these Monroe Doctrine half dollars because they didn’t look like regular United States coins. The next time she sent me to talk the store owner into accepting them. I was quite persuasive, being eight years old and vey sincere, and with my Catholic schooling and all, so I managed to do all the bakery buying for most of 1932 with these half dollars. And they, of course, were gem Uncirculated. And they lasted, I guess, to then end of ’32 or early 1933.

‘When I found out last year that in one of your auctions someone had paid $30,000 for a Mint State-67, whereas I had been spending them for face value in 1932–obviously top mint State pieces because they were in their original envelopes of issue, never having been taken out–I was rather flabbergasted. This just goes to show you that I should have kept the damn things! That was my first experience with commemoratives. . .”13

2. Writing in The Numismatist, May 1937, p. 393, John F. Jones stated that ‘a series of educational films were made’ in connection with the Exposition.

1. Reference: p. 29 of Coinage of Commemorative 50-Cent Pieces (U.S. Government Printing Office, 1936).

2. Interview conducted February 20, 1991.

13 Commemorative Coins of the United States; A Complete Encyclopedia, Q. David Bowers. Published by Bowers and Merena Galleries, Inc., Box 1224, Wolfeboro, NH 03894, 1991, pp. 168-171.


Old Dennison style mailing coin card used for this issue. Image courtesy of Stacks Bowers Galleries.

 

Last post for a couple weeks here. Be out of range of the internet.

“Coin designs that blend technical skill with artistry move coinage from instruments of commerce to diminutive pieces of art. Among the plethora of commemorative designs, many stand out for a variety of reasons. Some are renowned for their content, some for their technique, and others for their creativity. Chester Beach (1881-1956) is considered on of the prominent commemorative designers of the 1920s and 1930s. His list of commemorative designs include the Monroe Doctrine half dollar of 1923, the Lexington-Concord Sesquicentennial half dollar in 1925, the 1928 Hawaiian Sesquicentennial half dollar based upon designs by Juliette May Fraser, and finally the 1935 Hudson Sesquicentennial half dollar.

The Monroe Doctrine is innovative for its reverse design that uses stretched and improvised contortions of the female human form to represent the continents of North and South America. Beach’s design for the Monroe Doctrine half reflects trends in coinage design and the creativity and failure of an artist just as much as it commemorates the Monroe Doctrine.

Struck to commemorate the hundredth anniversary of the Monroe Doctrine, the piece was oddly sponsored by the motion picture industry, rather than the obvious choice of a patriotic organization. The First Annual American Historical Revue and Motion Picture Industry Exposition was held in June 1923, providing a convenient way for the film industry to gain some publicity. Many of the pieces are worn and well within the realm of any collector—with pieces available for under $25. Arlie Slabaugh suspects that many of the commemoratives were placed in circulation for good publicity rather than to obtain money, which is the traditional use for commemorative issues. A negative result of wide circulation is that this issue is one of the rarest commemoratives in gem condition.

The reverse design, praised for its imaginative usage of figures, is perhaps derived from an 1899 design by Ralph (sic) Beck. The design can be found on the reverse of the medal for the 1901 Pan-American Exposition of that year in Buffalo, New York. James Earle Fraser, who acted as an advisor for the designing of the Monroe half, brushed off accusations of plagiarism. But a comparison of the two designs shows many similarities in the figures and the design layout. Beck’s design also serves as a prototype of Beach’s. While many view the design as mundane, others the Monroe half as an interesting modern coinage design, yet falling victim to contemporary medallic trends such as shallow relief.

In terms of successful modeling, the piece does not stand out as an exceptional example of the coiner’s art. . .

The obverse is substandard, with its portraits of James Monroe and John Quincy Adams standing among the worst in the American numismatic tradition. The portraits seem not to be portraits at all but rather two generic male figures. Both the obverse and the reverse continue the trend—that began with Anthony de Francisci’s half dollar and continued with John Flanagan’s Washington quarter—of using low relief to give the coin a soft appearance. On Beach’s half, the shallow relief is hardly successful in defining the portraits or allegorical figures, for they lack any sharpness of definition and do not display the fortitude and strength of the continents.

When researching the article the author discovered an artist named Giuseppe Arcimgoldo (Italian, 1527-1693), who may be the first to use individual figures as symbols. In his paintings ‘Eve with Apple’ and Counterpart,’ Arcimgoldo composes the faces by grouping small cherubs in various poses.

The works are privately held, and to book is listed in the bibliography. Arcimgoldo is presently regarded as a clever artist who has fallen out of interest, but his work establishes an earlier artistic precedent upon which the reverse design of the Monroe Doctrine half is based.

Throughout his life, Beach reworked the ‘personagraphy’ theme used on the reverse applying it to many of his commissions. While Beach’s Monroe Doctrine design has its critics, it successfully reflects the sensuality of the motion picture industry of the 1920s. The design serves to reflect the oeuvre* of Chester Beach where clever ideas fall victim to poor modeling, low, relief, and ultimately plagiarism.”14


Giuseppe Arcimgoldo (Italian, 1527-1693), who may be the first to use individual figures as symbols. In his paintings ‘Eve with Apple’ and Counterpart, Arcimgoldo composes the faces by grouping small cherubs in various poses. Courtesy The Commemorative Trail, The Journal of the Society for U.S. Commemorative Coins, A Study of Chester Beach’s Monroe Doctrine Design, by Steven R. Roach (J-087, MI) Spring – 1998, Volume 15 - #3, p. 27.




*oeu·vre, noun, the works of a painter, composer, or author regarded collectively. "the complete oeuvre of Mozart"

14The Commemorative Trail, The Journal of the Society for U.S. Commemorative Coins, A Study of Chester Beach’s Monroe Doctrine Design, by Steven R. Roach (J-087, MI) Spring – 1998, Volume 15 - #3, p. 26-28.

 

I'm back:

Cornelius Vermeule writes: “Chester Beach (1881-1956) was born in San Francisco, trained in Paris, and resided in New York City. Of his talents Charles R. Morey wrote, ‘Wholly modern if not yet entirely personal and consistent is the plastic vocabulary of Chester Beach. . . A versatile artist, known as a medalist as well as a worker in various stones, bronze and ivory, he displays in each field the power of making his medium expressive by its mere texture.’7 Beach designed the Monroe Doctrine Centennial half dollar coined early in 1923 (fig. 176). The piece is not attractive; but if it can be called ugly, it must also be termed imaginative. Jugate busts of Monroe and John Quincy Adams fill the obverse, while women personifying North and South America, ocean currents, and the scroll and quill pen of the document take up the reverse. The low, flat relief with an attempt at a feeling for modeling rather than carving makes the busts and the females poised to imitate the outline of the continents seem like mounted cut-outs. They can even be said to resemble daubs of clay on a board, or relief outlines in glass.

Adams, with his staring eye, is scarcely a portrait, and Monroe would not be recognized even by an expert. The triple-lined rim is unnecessary. The way the females are contorted to achieve their appearance of continents is a clever tour de force of calligraphic relief but an aesthetic monstrosity, a bad pun in art. North America holds an olive branch and South America half conceals a cornucopia in order to fill out their shorelines. Perhaps the crowing touch is that the northern continent’s right hand reaches down to form Central America. This coin was not the first use of the anthropomorphic Western hemisphere in the die cutter’s art.

In 1901 Ralph [sic] Beck had designed a similar obverse for a medal honoring the Pan-American Exposition at Buffalo, and complained bitterly of Beach’s adaptation of his design for the 1923 commemorative.8. . .


7Morey, 220.

8. Ralph [sic] Beck took credit for the motif, having been the designer of the Pan-American Exposition seal, but James E. Fraser was responsible for the idea of turning North and South America into draped females on the reverse of the Monroe Doctrine centennial half dollar. His suggestion to Chester Beach was recorded more than once in the correspondence of the Commission of fine Arts. See Taxay, Commemorative Coinage, 62-68. The Pan-American Exposition medal attributed to Beach is illustrated on page 49 of Slabaugh’s Commemorative Coinage, and the familiar Beach monogram seems to be visible to the right of the female embodying North America; in poses and details the ladies are more like those of the Ralph [sic] Beck seal than the Monroe Doctrine Centennial half dollar. As is often the case in th fine arts, by 1923, Beck, Fraser, and even Beach himself may have forgotten about the latter’s connections with the designs of 1901.

As a designer of commemorative half dollars, Chester Beach was to produce the Lexington-Concord Sesquicentennial coin of 1925, more conservative than the Monroe Doctrine Centennial half dollar but a sounder piece of numismatic art. Fuller consideration will demonstrate that the art as such is inherent in the design of the statue on the obverse and the view of the building on the reverse. The former was the creation of Daniel Chester French. The latter was the work of an anonymous colonial architect or village builder (fig. 180).”15

15 Numismatic Art in America; Aesthetics of the United States Coinage, 2nd edition, Cornelius Vermeule, Whitman Publishing, LLC, 2007, p. 154, 156.


Chester Beach ca . 1910.

“Chester Beach Bio:

Sculptor Chester Beach (1881-1956) was known for portrait busts, allegorical and mythological figures, coins and medallic art in the Beaux-Arts tradition. He lived and worked in New York City and Brewster, New York.

He was the son of Chilion Beach and Elizabeth Ferris Beach, was born in San Francisco on May 23, 1881. He initially studied at the California School of Mechanical Arts in 1899. He remained in San Francisco and between 1900 and 1902 continued his art training at the Mark Hopkins Institute of Art while working as a jewelry designer. To further his career and exposure to artistic trends, Beach moved to New York City in 1903. The following year, he went to Paris, enrolled at the École des Beaux Arts, and also studied with Raoul Verlet at the Académie Julian.
Upon his return to New York in 1907, Beach established a studio on Tenth Street. He won the National Academy of Design’s Barnett Prize for a sculpture in 1907 and the Academy elected him an Associate Artist the following year. His increased stature resulted in numerous portrait commissions and eventually lead to commissions for monuments and architectural sculpture. In 1910, Chester Beach married Eleanor Hollis Murdock, a painter he met when both were art students in Paris. The couple spent the next two years in Rome; for several years and after returning Beach continued to spend time in Italy and maintained a studio in Rome.

Solo exhibitions of Beach’s work were presented at Macbeth Gallery (1912), Pratt Institute (1913), Cincinnati Art Museum (1916), John Herron Art Institute (1916), and Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester (1917). In addition to frequent participation in annual exhibitions at the National Academy of Design and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Beach was represented in the Panama-Pacific International Exposition (195), and in group shows at venues including: Art Institute of Chicago, Boston Art Club, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, and National Arts Club.

The gold medal presented by Académie Julian (1905), Beach’s first award, was followed by many other prizes, among them: American Numismatic Society prize for a medal commemorating the Peace of Versailles (1919) and its Saltus Medal for distinguished medallic art (1946); Architectural League of New York gold medal (1924); National Academy of Design Barnett Prize (1907) and the Watrous gold medal (1926); National Arts Club medal and prizes (1923, 1926, 1932); and the Panama-Pacific International Exposition silver medal (1915).

Beach was an Academician of the National Academy of Design, a member of the American Numismatic Society, Architectural League of New York, National Arts Club, National Institute of Arts and Letters, and the National Sculpture Society (President, 1927-1928).

For more than 40 years, Beach lived and worked at 207 East 17th Street. The brownstone, purchased in 1913, was large enough for the family’s home, his studio, and additional studios that were rented to other artists. Through barter, Beach acquired land in Brewster, NY, and in 1917 hired Italian stonemasons to build a studio. Later, they erected a summer house for the family. Many old stone walls on the site provided material for both buildings and Beach named the property Oldwalls.

After a long illness, Chester Beach died at Oldwalls on August 6, 1956. The funeral service was held at his Brewster, NY, studio and he is buried in Cold Spring Cemetery, Cold Spring, NY.”16

16 Archives of American Art.


Congressional Authorization Act:


[PUBLIC—NO. 391—67TH CONGRESS.]


[S. 4096.]


An Act to authorize the coinage of 50-cent pieces in commemoration of the one hundredth anniversary of the enunciation of the Monroe Doctrine.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That in commemoration of the one hundredth anniversary of the enunciation of the Monroe Doctrine there shall be coined at the mints of the United States silver 50-cent pieces to the number of not more than three hundred thousand, such 50-cent pieces to be of the standard troy weight, composition, diameter, device, and design as shall be fixed by the Director of the Mint, with the approval of the Secretary of the Treasury, which said 50-cent pieces shall be legal tender in any payment to the amount of their face value.

SEC.2. That the coins herein authorized shall be issued only upon the request of the Los Angeles Clearing House and upon payment by such clearing house to the United States of the par value of such coins.

SEC.3. That all laws now in force relating to the subsidiary silver coins of the United States and the coining or striking of the same, regulating and guarding the process of coinage, providing for the purchase of material and for the transportation, distribution, and redemption of the coins, for the prevention of debasement or counterfeiting, for security of the coin, or for any other purposes, whether said laws are penal or otherwise, shall, so far as applicable, apply to the coinage herein authorized:-

Provided, That the United States shall not be subject to the expense of making the necessary dies and other preparations for this coinage.

Approved, January 24, 1923.



THE END.

Hope some enjoyed it.

Should I know write about the 1923 Monroe Celebration?