I have always found So-Called Dollars to be an interesting area of United States coinage, here are three that I bought at auction a few years ago... An Italian Exhibit Dollar (HK-471) from the 1933 Chicago World's Fair, Century Of Progress. The scuffs are on the holder, the coin truly is gem MS-65 and a work of art in my opinion. Worth quite a bit and destined for a new NGC edgeholder someday... Here's a 1915 Panama Pacific SC$ (HK-409) from the Montana Exposition. Once again the scuffs are on the old ANACS holder, the coin is an absolute beauty and will one day go to NGC where I feel it will warrant an MS-63... Here's another from the 1933 Chicago World's Fair, Century Of Progress, an A&P Carnival Dollar (HK-464). This one had my name literally written all over it! Once again the scuffs are on the holder. I won't name the auction company but they really need to take a great deal more care handling certified coins!
beauties, I should dig out some of mine to show & tell. I ahve that A & P one, but don't remember the condition. Nice pieces. :thumb:
Wonderful. Now if we could only get the US Mint to design coins with that much artistic touch. Heck, I'd accept something reasonably close. I can see getting tremendous pleasure out of a collection like that.
They could possibly do that for commemoratives, but not for circulation coinage. These SCD were for the most part medals and occasionally tokens. They could not possibly be struck with a single blow of the press or at the speed needed for the production of a circulation coin. And to lower the relief enough to accomplish that they would lose all of their artistry and beauty. Now a commemorative coin does not have tha kind of a restriction. Higher relief is possible because of a slower press speed. Even so the production of pieces like some of these would probably not be practical. For example the first one shown above probably took at least three blows from the press, possibly more, with the medal having to be annealed between each strike. A process that meant it would take a minimum of a week to ten days to strike one, plus the headache of making sure each piece was returned to the same die pair that had made the earlier impression, plus the care to make sure the piece and the dies are in absolute alignment.
