The 1926 Sesquicentennial $2.50: An Affordable Classic Gold Commemorative

PCGS - The Classic Gold Commemorative coins struck between 1903 and 1926 are generally considered an expensive series, with several of these pieces trading for many multiples of their gold premiums; two - the $50 Round and Octagonal Panama-Pacific coins - usually fetch around $100,000 apiece or more. But there is one Classic Gold Commemorative that is relatively affordable and offers collectors both potential challenge and artistic intrigue: the 1926 $2.50 Sesquicentennial. The coin was issued to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, an act that established the United States of America.


Gold Commemorative, 1926 $2.50 Sesquicentennial, PCGS MS66

A Sinnock Classic
The 1926 $2.50 Sesquicentennial was designed by Chief Engraver of the United States Mint John Ray Sinnock, whose name may ring familiar to fans of the Roosevelt dime and Franklin half dollar - two popular circulating issues he designed two decades later. The obverse of the gold commemorative coin depicts Miss Liberty standing upon a globe with the Torch of Freedom in her right hand and a scroll emblematic of the Declaration of Independence in her left. The reverse is anchored by Independence Hall, the Philadelphia landmark where the Declaration of Independence was written in 1776.

The 1926 $2.50 Sesquicentennial was the last of the gold commemoratives produced during the run of so-called United States Classic Commemoratives, the moniker given to all U.S. commemorative coinage produced between 1892 and 1954. And, as history went on to show, the nation's commemorative series would be revived again a generation later in 1982, with a new family of Modern Gold Commemoratives dated from 1984 through the present.

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