3 US Commemorative Half Dollars That Never Happened And Doomed The Classic Commemorative Program

PCGS - The United States Classic Commemorative Coin program that launched in 1892 with the Columbian Half Dollar is commonly cited as ending in 1954 with the Washington-Carver Half Dollars. And, indeed, the 1954 Washington-Carver Half Dollars honoring Tuskegee University founder Booker T. Washington and inventor George Washington Carver were the last Commemorative Coins to roll off the United States Mint presses until the George Washington Commemorative Half Dollar that was struck a generation later in 1982.


Silver Commemorative, 1954 50C Washington-Carver, PCGS MS67

But what were the coins that ultimately brought an end to the United States Commemorative Coin program? What were the proverbial straws that broke the numismatic camel's back? Concerns about large numbers of Commemorative Coins bristled the Treasury Department in the 1920s and problems with financial abuses grew in the mid-1930s. But by the 1940s government leaders were using a heavy hand to curtail waves of new commemorative coinage and eliminate any further improprieties. Finally, a trio of presidential vetoes in the 1950s brought an end to the classic Commemorative Coin series.

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