No evidence presented that the Danbury mint was involved in the tenth anniversary of the USS Eisenhower. That could have been anyone. The Danbury was involved with the first one Davidh showed but no information on what that one was commemorating and I can't read anything on it.
I'd still like to know what the OPs piece is commemoriating. I just can't imagine it being 10 years after Ike's death.
Of course 1979 would also be the teth anniversary of the moon landing which is symbolized on the reverse of the Ike dollar.
That is true. So, I guess the main question is does the commemoration have to do with Ike or the coin. Ike himself had very little do with the moon landing (although a little bit). He had passed away before Apollo 11 landed at the Sea of Tranquility. But, the Apollo 11 emblem is on the reverse of his coin. That is an excellent point that I hadn't connected in this discussion.
Who cares about the commissioning of the USS DDE? I can think of thousands of sailors who served aboard her that would care about her commissioning. Every ship you serve aboard you care about its history. Dave USN Retired.
That was why I asked for the exact date on the postmark, would help track down exatly what was being commemorated. And while Eisenhower didn't have that much to do with the moon landing itself, the NASA program did begin under his administration.
We can speculate forever on who, what and why this is all about but we're just flailing around in the dark until the OP jumps back in here and gives us a bit more information. How about it msardo?
That's why I said "although a little bit." NASA was founded out of the NACA in 1958 under the Eisenhower administration. He was also instrumental in choosing the perimeters for the original groups of astronauts. Many in NASA were against using test pilots for the program because they tended to be difficult to control and in many eyes more trouble than they were worth. Ike insisted. Thus, the Mercury 7 were all test pilots and the trend continued for a little bit after that.
Well, the US mint was going to produce a set to commemorate the 50th anniversary of NASA this year...but I think it got pushed back to next year. I'm not exactly sure what the legal reasoning for that was, but I'm sure it was a Congressional decision.
It was pushed back due to the lack of blanks needed to produce both the silver and gold coins. If there wasn't a shortage, they would have probably been released this year. According to an article in Coin World or Numismatic news, the mint said that it wasn't sure when they were going to release the set and that it could be 2010 or 2011 because 2009 already had two comm coins sets to be released.
OK, that makes sense. Hopefully they will release them simply to commemorate NASA...not to commemorate the 50th anniversary of NASA (or the 51st or 52nd for that matter)...since neither 2009 or 2010 are the 50th anniversary. As much as I love NASA, I highly doubt I will buy this set unless the coins look really nice. I don't care for the whole solar system theme. Lets commemorate NASA's best accomplishments instead.
Richie, the $50 gold piece, that is going with this set, is supposed to be gorgeous from what I hear. I think they are planning for a total mintage of 50k. It will be 1oz., so the price will be determined by whatever gold is going for when they decide to make it.
No not yet... there has been talk that the mint may try to do something different with this series such as holograms or painted coins. For the love of GOD, I hope not. This was just something I read somewhere. Ideas for the $50 gold piece included a blazing sun on one side and something to do with (obviously) NASA on the other - this may include a tribute to all lives lost. When I think of this coin, I immediately think of the coin below. I really like that design. Austrailia has released space exploration coins that rotate around the planet earth. So there is an inner coin and an outer rings that "spins" around the coin. The coins are painted and/or have holograms. They looked neat and I almost bought the set, but then I read that they Austrailian mint is using some new technology that permanently protects the paint/coin from damage due to touching it. That just doesn't appeal to me.
Problem is in order to buy the $50 piece you have to buy all nine dollar coins as well. They don't plan on selling the $50 separately. Or at least that was the plan when they were trying to do it for 2008.
I personally don't mind that at all, I would buy the whole set if I thought they were going to to it right. IMHO, they need to dump the planets and sun thing. If it was up to me, I would put 9 of the top accomplishments in NASA's 50 years on the obverse of the silver coins. On the reverse, I would put the NASA meat-ball logo and some kind of anniversary notation. On the gold coin, either the #1 NASA accomplishment (moon landing?) or a memorial to all the astronauts who were killed...with the same reverse. The memorial idea might be hard though. Most would just say to put the logos of the 3 missions who's crew's were killed (Apollo 1, STS-51-L, STS-107)...but IMHO the handful of astronauts who were killed in various training related accidents are just as deserving, and that wouldn't commemorate them. So, I don't know how to do it.
