I've slowly been adding to my Early Commemoratives set. "Slowly" because prices seem to be climbing. But here's a 1936 Cincinnati.
I started to go down this trail as well and then put the breaks on for the same reason: price. Are you only collecting graded pieces or or does it matter?
All are graded and only in NGC or PCGS slabs. I've decided I want MS-63 to MS-65. So I'm replacing those that are in lower grades. But this Cincinnati was new for me.
The Cincinnati commemorative has a checkered past. Here is a write-up I did about it. The Cincinnati Music Center Commemorative Half Dollar Commemorative coins have frequently been issued in conjunction with anniversaries and celebrations. Funds earned from the sale of those coins helped to cover the cost of the event. The Cincinnati Music Center Commemorative Half Dollar celebrated only greed and influence peddling. Stephen Foster was a noted composer, but he had nothing to do with Cincinnati when he was writing music, and a “music festival” was not held when the coin was issued. Instead coin collector and business promoter, Thomas Melish, pocketed a lot of money and did what he could to make the selling prices as high as possible. Cincinnati did have an illustrious musical past. In 1873 George Ward Nichols organized the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra with Theodore Thomas as its conductor. In 1878 Nichols became the director of the Cincinnati College of Music. Later he took on the title of “Musical Missionary” when he took the orchestra on tour throughout the United States. The tour brought symphonic music to many people for the first time. There could have been a case for issuing a commemorative half dollar that celebrated the 50th anniversary of the orchestra in 1923 with Theodore Thomas on the obverse, but that was not destined to happen. Instead coin promoter Melish pushed for a design that featured Stephen Foster on the obverse and a female figure on the reverse playing a lyre and the phrase “Cincinnati a Music Center of America.” Stephen Foster wrote a number of familiar numbers in the 19th century including “Oh Susannah,” “Old Kentucky Home” and “Old Black Joe,” but he spent most of his life in Pittsburg and New York. Foster spent three years in Cincinnati, but he worked as a bookkeeper for his brother’s business. There were no musical celebrations in Cincinnati in 1936. In short, the coin commemorated nothing. Thomas Melish, who may have been the only member of the Cincinnati Musical Center Commemorative Coin Association, pulled out all of the promotional stops. He pushed a bill through Congress which authorized issues of commemorative coins that would be struck at the three mints that were open at the time, Denver, Philadelphia and San Francisco. He advocated for mintages of 10,000 at Philadelphia and 2,000 each from Denver and San Francisco. Fortunately Congress derailed that rarity creating scheme and set the mintages at 5,000 for each mint. Melish made arrangements to have the first 200 coins produced at each mint to be caught in gloved hands as the coins were struck. These pieces were placed in black cardboard holders with openings for each of the three coins. An official document was pasted to the back of each holder. Documentation included the number of the set indicating order in which each coin had been struck, the signature of a notary public, his seal and Thomas Melish’s signature. These sets were sent to President Franklin Roosevelt, selected members of Congress and Melish’s close friends. The coins were ordinary Mint State coins with no special finish. Regular coins were sold in PDS sets for $7.75, but only a small number of collectors were able to buy them at that price. The issue was soon “oversubscribed” and the price quickly rose to $45 and ultimately, $75. These pieces were issued at a time when the commemorative coin craze was at its height in the mid-1930s. Melish attempted to double down on his money making scheme in 1937 by asking Congress to issue a second group of Cincinnati Music Center coins, but fortunately that bill failed to pass. This is an "old holder" NGC MS-64.
The Cincinnati commemorative is harder to find for the 52 piece type collectors than you might think. The total mintage was 15,000 which is the total for the 5,000 pieces that each of the three mints produced. Trouble is the collectors who are acquiring the complete set each soak up three coins. That leaves fewer coins for the type collectors. I bought the coin I showed above at a Winter FUN show over 20 years ago.
