A Few So-Called Dollars Added To My Collection

I'd been wanting to add one of the aluminum Arkansas Fund so-called dollars from the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition. It's tied both to my interest in classic commemoratives and also to Arkansas-related currency and exonumia. While it's quite common, I thought this one was interesting because it came from the collection of so-called dollar expert Jeff Shevlin.


While browsing the auction listings, I made a couple spur-of-the-moment winning bids on two others from the same collection - 1959 Alaska and Hawaii Flag Day so-called dollars. These were both struck in nickel silver and are also quite common. I know the Hawaii example was struck in both medal and coin alignments, but I've only seen the Alaska example in coin alignment.

I was born during the short period when the U.S. had 49 states, after Alaska became a state in January 1959 and before Hawaii in August 1959. At the time of the auction, that seemed to be a good enough reason to get these. There may also have been alcohol involved... Oh, well, at least they were inexpensive...