I find many coins fascinating, and many times more, the people who some of them commemorate. The Daniel Boone Bicentennial commemorative is one of particular interest to me because of my love for the history regarding the time that Daniel lived. The coin itself was minted over a period of 5 years (1934-1938) and struck at all three mints (Denver, San Francisco, Philadelphia) except for the first year of issue where it was solely struck by the Philadelphia Mint. It commemorates the 200th anniversary of the birth (1734) of this extraordinary explorer, soldier and frontiersman. The coin was designed by Augustus Lukeman and bears the artists conception of Boone in a profile portrait on the obverse. The reverse depicts the standing figures of both Boone and Chief Blackfish of the Shawnee Native American tribe. Boone was instrumental in blazing the Wilderness trail through the Cumberland Gap of the Appalachian Mountains and into the Kentucky wilderness, helping to expand colonial America into the western regions. He founded the settlement of Boonesboro (present day central Kentucky) in1775. With the out break of the American Revolution the British, under the command of Lt. Governor (Canada) Henry Hamilton began to incite the Ohio country native American tribes to attack colonial interests in both the Ohio country and the Kentucky regions. Soon colonials were abandoning the region and only a stalwart few were left to defend the forts and settlements. So vicious were the attacks that the remaining defenders were bottled up in their fortifications for weeks on end. Sooner or later one has to venture out to replenish food supplies and preservatives to make the rations last longer. Salt was the preservative of choice in that day so, in January 1778 Boone led a party of 30 men to the salt springs on Licking River. In February the expedition was surprised by a superior force of Chilicothe Shawnee led by Chief Blackfish. Boone, realizing the futility of his situation, convinced his men to surrender and avoid a massacre. He also convince Blackfish not to attack the now weakened Boonesboro until spring. The party of captured souls was taken back to the Shawnee towns where some of the captives were adopted by families who had lost members in battle. It was an accepted custom of tribes to do this sort of thing and quite common at the time. Boone himself was adopted by Chief Blackfish. When, in June, Boone learned of Blackfish's intentions of redoubling his efforts of attack on Boonesboro, he eluded his captors and made it back to the settlement in time to alert the garrison. Below, please find a 1936 addition to my fledgling collection.
Great write-up Ken. Your classic commemorative collection seems to be coming together quite nicely. TC
Thanks TC. It is coming along bit by bit. I needed this one (already had a Boone) because it has '1934' on the reverse. My other one doesn't. Thanks for reading and commenting..........
Nice write up on one of my childhood heroes Ken and I like the coin too. It's one on my short list of classics on the agenda.
I have a set of 3 1938 Boones (1938, D, and S) and I wanted to ask you guys do you feel these are a underrated coin?
Necro thread....... Welcome to the forum Jordan. Commem demand fluctuates quite a bit. One year they're in great demand, and then a few years later, not so much so. Right now things are kind of 'squishy', but if you possess high grade examples of these coins ('66 or better), then those will always be in demand.
I had a 1938 in NGC 63...hairlined kept it from going higher...VERY low mintage...that is one that I regret having to let go [emoji26] Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk
I think the design is pretty middle of the road as far as classic commems go. It suffered from being minted multiple years, only one of which corresponded to the anniversary it was commemorating. The figure on the obverse does not resemble any contemporary description of Boone (no portraits exist), and the reverse depicts a scene that could not have happened. Despite this, I consider the design to be average among all classic silver commemoratives. The people behind it pushed the creation of multiple issues, and adding the small 1934 date on later pieces, just to milk more money out of it. This coin effectively lead to the commemorative mania of the 30s that, in turn, lead to the end of the classic commemorative series as a whole. The '38 set is one of the better years overall in terms of price, but that's because half of the coins struck that year were melted because people were sick of buying them. Overall, I would say this coin is not a favorite of mine, but it's by far not my least favorite. It will never compete with the Oregon Trail half as far as I'm concerned. I don't think the coin itself is really going anywhere independent of what classic commemoratives as a whole are doing.
