The five Panama–Pacific commemorative coins were produced in connection with the 1915 Panama–Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco. Struck at that city's mint, the issue included round and octagonal $50 pieces. Excepting modern bullion coins, these two gold pieces are the highest denomination ever issued and the largest coins ever struck by the United States Mint. The octagonal $50 piece is the only U.S. coin to be issued that is not round.
In January 1915, Congress passed legislation for a silver half dollar, as well as a gold dollar, quarter eagle ($2.50 piece), and two $50 pieces: one round and one octagonal. The Mint had already consulted artists. Treasury Secretary William G. McAdoo initially rejected all their designs. Two of them, Robert Ingersoll Aitken for the $50 pieces and Charles Keck for the gold dollar, persevered, and their submissions were used. The half dollar and quarter eagle were designed by Chief Engraver Charles E. Barber, possibly with the participation of his longtime assistant, George T. Morgan.
The coins were vended at the Exposition by prominent numismatist Farran Zerbe. They did not sell well, and many of each denomination were returned for melting. Only a few hundred of each of the $50 pieces were distributed, making them the lowest-mintage commemorative coins. They catalog for up to $200,000, depending on condition.
Background
Private gold pieces, sometimes dubbed "pioneer gold", were struck several times during the 19th century from locally produced bullion in areas where federal coins were scarce. These unofficial coins came from sites ranging from Georgia to Oregon. Many, ranging in denomination from 25 cents to 50 dollars, are relics of the California Gold Rush and its aftermath. The fifty-dollar denomination was struck by private minters such as Kellogg and Co. The private $50 pieces were round in form, but those struck by Augustus Humbert for the U.S. Assay Office at San Francisco, prior to the establishment of the San Francisco Mint in 1854, were octagonal. Humbert's pieces were not money in a legal sense, as Congress had not authorized them as legal tender, and were officially deemed ingots. Nevertheless, they contained their full value in gold. Bearing the denomination "Fifty Dollars", they were called "slugs" or "quintuple eagles" by the public. They circulated widely in California and elsewhere in the Far West, and were accepted on par with federal gold coins.
All of these $50 pieces, public or private, are very rare and valuable today: One of Humbert's octagonal pieces, dated 1851 and with a lettered edge, sold at auction in 2010 for $546,250. The only $50 piece produced by the United States Bureau of the Mint prior to 1915 was the 1877 pattern half union, produced experimentally at the Philadelphia Mint, though it was not approved as a circulating coin.
In 1904, San Francisco merchant Rueben Hale proposed an exposition in his home city for 1915, both to commemorate the opening of the Panama Canal and to mark the 400th anniversary of Vasco Núñez de Balboa becoming the first European known to view the Pacific Ocean from the Americas: in phrasing then current, he discovered the Pacific. Although the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire caused a momentary setback to these plans, it actually sparked additional fundraising. Many of the wealthiest in California gave financial support, the state matched private donations dollar for dollar, and in 1911, President William Howard Taft selected San Francisco over its competitor, New Orleans, to host the fair.
The Panama–Pacific International Exposition, constructed in San Francisco by the Golden Gate at a cost of $50 million, was open from February 20, 1915, to December 4, 1915. About 19,000,000 people attended, and the exposition was a great success, generating enough profit to build the San Francisco Civic Auditorium with about $1 million remaining. The Palace of Fine Arts is the only building from the fair which remains on the site.
Commemorative coins were not then sold to the public by the Mint, as they subsequently have been. Instead, a commemorative's authorizing legislation would designate a group or organization to purchase the coins from the Mint at face value, and sell them to the public as a fundraiser. Among those who had pushed for commemorative legislation in the past, and had been involved in the sale of the resulting coins, was Farran Zerbe, a collector and numismatic promoter who had by 1914 served as president of the American Numismatic Association. Zerbe was a controversial figure—some felt the coins with which he had been involved had been sold at inflated prices—but he helped promote the hobby with his exhibit, "Money of the World", which later became part of the Chase Manhattan Money Museum.
Legislation
Several proposals for commemorative coins had been introduced by mid-1914, though none had been issued by the Mint since 1905. One, sponsored by New York Senator Elihu Root, called for a commemorative quarter dollar marking a century of peace, as well as the August 1914 opening of the Panama Canal. Two bills were introduced calling for coins to commemorate and benefit the Panama–Pacific Exposition; H.R. 16902 was introduced by California Congressman Julius Kahn on June 3, 1914. Senate bill (S.) 6309 was introduced in that body by New Jersey Senator James E. Martine on July 6. This bill called for two $50 pieces (one round, one octagonal), a quarter eagle or $2.50 in gold, a commemorative gold dollar, and a half dollar. The octagonal pieces were intended to recall the unofficial $50 coins struck during the Gold Rush
Martine's bill passed the Senate on August 3, having been approved by the Committee on Industrial Expositions, to which it had been referred. The only objection was procedural, by Utah's Reed Smoot: that the bill should have instead been referred to and approved by the Senate Committee on Banking and Currency, or its Committee on Finance. Neither Smoot nor any other senator objected to the bill itself, which Martine indicated had the support of Treasury Secretary William G. McAdoo. S. 6309 was the following day sent to the House of Representatives, where it was referred to the Committee on Coinage, Weights and Measures. It emerged from that committee on September 1, 1914, with several amendments, one of which increased the combined authorized mintage of the two $50 pieces from 2,000 to 3,000. S. 6309 was briefly considered by the House of Representatives on January 4, 1915, and passed after Kahn successfully proposed a minor amendment to strike out the dollar sign from the phrase "silver coins of the denomination of $50 cents each". The Senate concurred in the House amendments two days later, passing the bill without question, change, or opposition, and President Woodrow Wilson signed it into law on January 16.
Preparation Once Kahn's bill was introduced in the House, Mint Director George E. Roberts began to make informal arrangements to prepare for the commemorative issue. The bill called for four different designs (the two $50 pieces would differ mainly in shape), plus a commemorative medal to be sold to fairgoers, with an award medal to be given to prizewinning exhibitors. All of these pieces were to be struck by the Bureau of the Mint, and Roberts asked the Commission of Fine Arts to recommend artists. Among those recommended were Adolph A. Weinman (who would design the Mercury dime and Walking Liberty half dollar in 1916), and Bela L. Pratt (creator of the 1908 Indian Head gold pieces). Others included sculptors Evelyn Beatrice Longman, Robert I. Aitken, Charles Keck, and Paul Manship.
Roberts wrote to several of the sculptors, and found Aitken interested in creating the $50 pieces. The Mint Director's tentative negotiations with Aitken for the large gold coins and with Buffalo nickel designer James Earl Fraser for the award medal ended when Roberts resigned in November to take a banking job; McAdoo appointed Dr. Frederic Dewey as Acting Director of the Mint. Dewey and McAdoo did little regarding the Panama–Pacific coins until Congress began to pass the authorizing legislation in early January 1915. Once it had passed both houses, and was awaiting Wilson's signature, Dewey arranged for a meeting in New York with Aitken, Keck, Longman, and Manship. The authorizing act required the Mint to begin delivering coins by the opening date of the fair, February 20, 1915, and although this proved impractical, the Mint still acted quickly. McAdoo approved the choices of Aitken for the $50 pieces, Longman for the quarter eagle, Keck for the dollar, and Manship for the half dollar on January 21. All four artists were already at work, and Aitken responded to the notification of his hiring by submitting designs, which were similar to the actual coins.
By January 29, all four artists had submitted bronze casts of their proposals. Dewey forwarded them to McAdoo, who solicited advice from the Commission of Fine Arts (which liked them), his Assistant Secretary, William Malburn (who did not), and Chief Engraver Charles E. Barber and others at the Philadelphia Mint (who offered suggestions). McAdoo had asked that the Mint prepare alternative designs for all the coins, and Barber did so, starting with the half dollar. Rejections to all four of the outside artists were sent on February 5 over McAdoo's signature. The reasons for this are uncertain, as the rejections are terse—Anthony Swiatek and Walter Breen, in their volume on commemoratives, assert that Malburn's opposition was decisive.
All four outside artists protested. Manship's objections were to no avail; McAdoo selected the design submitted by Barber for the half dollar. Longman asked for an explanation, submitted new designs, and came to Washington to discuss the matter. According to a letter several months later from Dewey, she fell ill there and was unable to participate further; numismatic historian Roger Burdette finds the explanation odd and suggests that there may have been some other reason. Barber was selected to design the quarter eagle. Both Atiken and Keck objected to the Commission of Fine Arts and to McAdoo; Keck also submitted additional designs. Both men met with McAdoo, Malburn and Dewey in Washington, and agreed to changes to their proposed designs. With that done, the $50 and $1 pieces were approved on March 6, 1915. The half dollar was approved two days later. Barber submitted his designs for the quarter eagle on March 16. They met an enthusiastic reception at the Treasury Department, and were approved.
Designs
Barber's half dollar and quarter eagle
To what extent Mint Assistant Engraver (later Chief Engraver) George T. Morgan should be credited for work on the half dollar and quarter eagle is uncertain; Mint officials and employees were not consistent on this point. Assistant Director Mary M. O'Reilly said in 1936 that the bureau's records indicated that Barber was the designer. Later the same year, she forwarded a statement by an unnamed Philadelphia Mint employee stating that by the very nature of Barber's and Morgan's long association (Morgan was Barber's assistant for 37 years), the two engravers would have conferred frequently, and that Morgan's technique is "very obvious on both sides of both coins". The employee concluded that "no mistake could be made, in my opinion, in crediting both men with the execution of these two coins. I am certain that this is correct." Q. David Bowers, in his book on commemoratives, mentions the dispute, credits Barber on the obverses of both coins, and gives both men credit on the reverse of the half dollar. He asserts Morgan created the reverse of the quarter eagle.