A few brief notes about the 1915 Panama-Pacific ("Pan-Pac") International Exposition Half Dollar...Tidbit #1The dies for the Pan-Pac Exposition were prepared in the Engraving Department of the Philadelphia Mint; the coins were struck at the San Francisco Branch Mint.
The dies for the half dollar are reported to have been delivered to San Francisco on May 8, 1915. The initial batch of 48,000 coins was struck in June 1915, and went on sale in July (60,000 total half dollars were ultimately struck; nearly 29,000 unsold coins were returned to the Mint to be melted).
The coins were not available when the Exposition opened (the Exposition opened on February 20, 1915 and ran through December 4, 1915). The official souvenir medals struck in the US Mint exhibit at the Exposition were available from the start, however.
Official Souvenir Medal of Pan-Pac International Exposition - Silver
Tidbit #2The Pan-Pac Half Dollars were eligible to be struck at the Mint exhibit on the Exposition grounds, and plans for such were considered, but mulitiple logistics issues (including security concerns) prevented the plan from being executed.
The half dollars were struck at the San Francisco Branch Mint along with the Exposition's gold coins; coins were delivered to the Exposition in batches - as ordered by Farran Zerbe, the promoter of the coins at the Exposition. Zerbe
did not maintain a large inventory of the coins at the Exposition.
Tidbit #3The obverse of the 1915 Pan-Pac International Exposition Half Dollar depicts
Columbia spreading flowers that she has pulled from a cornucopia being held by a cherub; the flowers symbolize the immense/boundless resources of the US' West.
Columbia is typically used to personify the physical elements of the United States (i.e., its land, its people).
Depictions of
Liberty are typically symbolic of the idealism behind concepts such as freedom and democracy.
It is understandable to think the allegorical female figure on the Half Dollar is
Liberty as she and
Columbia are often depicted similarly, but it is the more appropriate-for-the-coin
Columbia that is shown (the coin - and Exposition -commemorate the opening of the Panama Canal and its transformation of global trade).
Tidbit #4Collectors of
US coinage are generally aware that each current coin includes the inscriptions/mottoes "LIBERTY", "E PLURIBUS UNUM" and "IN GOD WE TRUST". This wasn't always the case.
The 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposiston Half Dollar was the first US commemorative coin to include the "IN GOD WE TRUST" motto (it is on the reverse) - it was the only motto of the three mandated today that is featured on the coin.
For more about the use of mottoes on US classic-era commemorative coins, see:
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Quick Bits 103 - Here A Motto, There A Motto1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition Half Dollar
For other of my posts about commemorative coins and medals, including other Tidbit stories, see: [b]
Commems Collection 
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