The 1993 Philadelphia Mint Bicentennial Set and Medal ... Long Forgotten

Back in 1993, those of us who are obsessed with the first Philadelphia Mint were really excited that the mint's bicentennial had arrived. I can remember going to an EAC convention at about the time that the mint was releasing its first coins 200 years earlier. There was a bill in Congress to issue a three piece commemorative coin set, but that failed to pass. Alexander Hamilton (first secretary of the Treasury), Thomas Jefferson (who devised the decimal coinage system) and David Rittenhouse (the first mint director) were to have appeared on the coins. But it was not meant to be.

Instead the mint issued two items. The first was a three inch medal, in sand blasted yellow bronze, which featured a rendition of the John Dunsmore's painting "Inspecting the first coins" on the obverse and depictions of U.S. coins thought the first two centuries on the reverse. There was also an inexpensive bronze version of this metal. Today this piece is so obscure, I can hardly find it using a Google search. The main "hit" I get is my own post on the NGC message board years ago.

Here is the medal.



The other commemorative item the mint issued was a five piece set which included a silver version of the medal shown above, a Silver Eagle and the 1/10th, 1/4th and 1/2 ounce Gold Eagles, all in Proof. I did not buy this set at the time because I did not want to spend $499 out of my then, much more limited coin budget. I have since bought one of these sets in the secondary market. It is now much more expensive, mainly because of the price of gold.







The mint sold 12,689 of these sets. A fair number of them have been broken up to get the silver medal, which can be slabbed. It can sell for over $100 in the top certified conditions.

Not many collectors are interested in these sets today, and it seems that the three inch medal gets even less attention.

There is one piece of trivia concerning the bronze medal. If you look carefully, you will see that the 1932 Washington Quarter has a mint mark on the obverse. Of course most collectors know that the mint mark was on the reverse in 1932 and for many years after that. This error was corrected on the silver medal.

 

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Something to search for. Thanks for sharing!

 

The medals are beautiful. Think I'd like to get one if I can find it.

 

thanks for the info, did not know these even existed! The set looks nice.