The September 3, 1922 edition of
The New York Herald included a brief piece titled "American Memorial Coins." Its opening paragraph provided both a brief recap of recent US commemorative coins and a prediction for the future that would prove very accurate:
"Issues of commemorative, or, as they are often called, souvenir, coins have been comparatively few in the United States. Within the last ten years there have been eight of these coins, a greater number than in the whole previous history of the country. These recent issues, however, attracted attention to a degree which would indicate the coinage commemorative of American events will be more frequent than it has been in the past."
"More frequent" proved to be quite the understatement!
Note: The "eight" count referenced in the article referred to coin programs vs. individual design types within these programs. For example, for the decade referenced, the four types (five if the Round and Octagonal varieties of $50 coins are counted separately) of 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition coins were counted as "1."The article also attempted to quell some of the criticism leveled against the early commemorative issues:
"Much of the earlier criticism of these souvenir coins grew out of a misunderstanding of the part of which the Government had in their production. They were not issued and put into circulation as commemorative postage stamps were. The Government had nothing to do with memorial coins beyond legalizing them by act of Congress and striking them at its mints."
This point was aimed at the complaints regarding commemorative coins being sold at prices that were at least twice their "face value" vs. being available for simple par value exchange. Most did not realize hat they were fund-raising tools vs. "simple" coinage.
Among the article's closing statements was:
"There is no doubt that commemorative coins have increased greatly in popularity in the last few years and that future issues will be frequent."
Truer words have never been spoken!
For other of my posts about commemorative coins and medals, including other US classic-era commemorative coin stories, see:
Commems Collection.
Posted 07/07/2025 09:36 am
