Here's another one for my registry, a 1936 Elgin half. There were 25,000 minted, of which 5,000 were melted by the mint. Despite the relative low mintage compared to other coins of the era, they remain fairly affordable because honestly, these were never a very popular coins and probably not what occasional collectors of classic commemoratives will get if they just want to acquire 2-3 from the type set I personally do not dislike the coin, and while it is rightfully superceded by other classic commemorative types, it is still a fairly solid design in my opinion.
I had not seen this commemorative before! But there are so many from that era. I like the design, but I was perplexed by the dates on it - what exactly is it commemorating? 263 years since what? It turns out that it was commemorating the 100th anniversary of the founding of Elgin, IL in 1835, but it wasn't coined until 1936, and 1673 is the year that explorers Jolliet and Marquette first entered what is now Illinois. Seems like an odd choice for both years on it. To top it all off, the coin was issued to fund local sculptor Trygve Rovelstad's memorial that he hoped to build in Elgin. He couldn't get enough funding and died in 1990 without seeing his dream fulfilled. It was finally completed and dedicated in 2001, 65 years later. What a strange story. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elgin,_Illinois,_Centennial_half_dollar
1936 was a crazy year, something like 21 different commemorative coins struck that year. Some of them were already existing designs, but the majority were brand new designs... and some of them really had dubious excuses as to what they were actually commemorating. I think collectors of the era probably felt the same way, which is why a lot of these commemorative coins had really poor sales in 1936, and some would take many years to sell off, or part of the coins were returned to the mint for remelting credit. Congress had enough and I think only four new designs were approved after that before the program was ended in 1954. At least back then the government had the decency to say this program has gotten out of hand and should be wrapped up. Unlike today's endless quarter programs, and the really dubious and poorly designed commemorative coins we've been pumping out for the last 40+ years (not all of them, but a lot of them).
Odd footnote about this coin. The Pioneer Family Memorial sculpture, which the coin was supposed to fund, was actually completed and dedicated. In 2001.
This was one of the problems with the commemorative coin programs of this era. Some, but not all, ended up becoming scams where people pocketed the money and didn't use it for the purpose for which the fund raising was intended. Some issues, like the Cincinnati commemorative half dollar, commemorated nothing except the greed of the promoter who got a bill passed by Congress to strike the coins. Add to that, scams where some people got control of most of the mintage and then soaked collectors, with high prices, who wanted to add the pieces to keep their sets complete.
Many of the more modern commemorative's had a surcharge added to the price. I have always wondered if those funds ever made it to the right cause. Little is ever said about this.
Once upon a time, I owned an NGC MS67* Elgin. I gave up on my commemorative collection, good to see others still continuing to collect classic commems.
Nice coins everyone. Thanks for sharing. I think this series makes a better collection. Instead of a 100 Morgans, ASE's, etc, that are essentially the same I say build a nice type if you so desire but to have one of each classic commemorative is an eye pleasing accomplishment.
