I've previously posted about the 1980-84 American Arts Gold Medallions program (the precursor to the American Gold Eagle series) in which I described the origins of the program.
You can find it here:
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1980-84 American Arts Gold Medallions(IMHO, it's worth the time to give it a look!
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I wanted to go back to 1978 and the 95th Congress, however, to discuss a competing bill that was introduced in the House of Representatives within weeks of the bill that ultimately led to the American Arts gold program.
Between July 21 and September 26, 1978, Jim Leach (R-IA) introduced four separate bills in the House of Representatives that called for a series of gold medallions with an "American Arts" theme. Though none of Leach's standalone bills became law, the program parameters he included in his bills were incorporated by the Senate into the Financial Institutions Regulatory and Interest Rate Control Act of 1978 - the American Arts Gold Medallion program was born!
Preceding Leach's first bill by a few weeks (June 28, 1978), George Vernon Hansen (R-ID) introduced a bill in the House that called for "the striking and public sale of gold coin commomoratives." Upon introduction, the bill was referred to the House Committee on Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs.
The bill's commemorative issue would best be described as a straight-up bullion piece vs. a legal tender coin. The bill included a troy weight specification for the proposed pieces - half-ounce and one ounce of 0.900 fine gold.
The bill refers to the requested gold commemoratives as "coins" (his quotation marks not mine) and specifies that none were to "carry any designation of its value, but each such coin shall bear a designation of the standard weight of fine gold which it contains." A specification clearly intended to separate any possible "face value" from the spot price of gold and thus keep the value of the commemorative in step with the fluctuating precious metals market.
The bill proposed the creation of an ongoing, annual program with the issue of one half-ounce and one one-ounce piece per year. In the program's first year, at least 500,000 one-ounce pieces were to be minted plus at least 1,000,000 half-ounce pieces. In future years of the program, the Secretary of the Treasury was given the authority to set the mintage amounts based on public demand.
The obverse designs to be used were required to differ between the two pieces (half-ounce and ounce), as well as from year to year. The reverse of all pieces, in contrast, would be the same across weights and years - i.e., a common reverse design was to be used on all of the program's issues.
The series was to be known as the "Historic Commemorative Series" and annually feature "events that have contributed to and advanced the history of our country, or those persons whose superior deeds or achievements have embellished our history or our culture, or who are representative of the finest of accomplishment and service to the Nation." The bill further stipulated that "Only those events or persons having national significance shall be commemorated." It appears that Representative Hansen wanted to make sure only the "A-List" was commemorated on the pieces!
Unlike the American Arts Medallions legislation, which included a list of those to be honored, Hansen's bill did not specify the subjects to be depicted in the "Historic" series - the subjects were TBD.
The issue price of the commemorative bullion was to reflect the current market. The bill stated that the pieces were to be "sold to the general public at a competitive price equal to the free market value of the gold contained therein plus the cost of manufacture, including labor, materials, dies, use of machinery, and overhead expenses including marketing costs." The bill opened up the possibility of using third parties to market and sell the commemoratives as long as their costs were covered by the issue price.
The "Historic Commemorative Series" bill was not reported by the Committee and was supplanted by the legislation that authorized the American Arts Gold Medallions. The two gold programs shared much common ground and, as such, I believe the "Historic Commemorative Series" could have been a workable first step into gold bullion purchasing for Americans as a prelude to the American Gold Eagle series which effectively combines the desirability of a legal tender coin with the intrinsic value of a bullion piece. But, we'll never know!
For more of my topics on commemorative coins and medals, including more What If? stories, see:
Commems Collection.
Posted 02/04/2025 1:27 pm
