On Selling So-Called Dollars

Never heard of these, how about a picture or 2 of them?

I've never sold any SCD, but have purchased some from Great Collections and have had a good overall experience working with them on several purchase and sales.




So Called Dollars (SCD) are IMO on a fascinating way to collect historical medals. Here is a very brief primer:

SCD are privately minted medals that are approximately the diameter of a dollar coin and were produced to commemorate various significant events in the course of US history.

They were first cataloged in 1963 by Harold Hibler and Charles Kappen who organized the known medals in to a book and introduced the phrase 'So Called Dollars'.

Hibler and Kappen organized the known SCD by number and referenced them in their book with a HK-xxx numbering system.

The first recognized SCD (HK-1) was issued in 1826 by the City of New York to celebrate the completion of the Erie Canal.

Today collectors of the series recognize over a thousand cataloged SCD. Many are quite rare and highly collectable (and expensive!).

I collect the SCD that were issued in conjunction with the 1915 Panama Pacific International Exposition (PPIE). There are by my count 29 official SCD from this expo to collect. Two of them are R8 on the Fuld rarity scale (5 to 10 known examples). I have one of the two R8 PPIE SCD, have been searching for a long time for the other.

Yes, this is the same PPIE that gave us 5 US Mint commemorative coins.

Here is an image of the PPIE Official Medal HK-400 in bronze. It was also issued in silver (HK-399) and gold plated bronze (HK-401).



This medal was designed by Robert Aitken, the same medallic artist who gave us the 1921 Missouri Centennial half dollar and the 1935/1936 San Diego half dollars.

Thanks Nickelsearcher. That was a far bettee explanation that I would have come up with. Oddly one the coins I got back was an HK-400!

I grabbed the pic from the NGC site. My coin photography skills are not very good.

Thank you both for sharing.

Very interesting, Bump!