Telephone examined began between New York and Chicago. Also in Chicago, 30-year-old soap salesclerk William Wrigley ongoing selling chewing gum instead. The Coca-Cola Company was orderly in Atlanta, and the first pneumatic exhaust was sham.
The year was 1892, and new beginnings seemed to be the order of the day. That was the folder in United States penny, as well. Three new silver coins entered circulation that year. Sometimes identified as the Liberty Head half cash, area and dime, they're more regularly referred to by the name of their designer: U.S. Mint chief sculptor-engraver Charles E. Barber.
The fractional silver coins were long overdue for a facelift. All had conceded the Seated Liberty likeness for more than half a century, and while it's constant that life was more leisurely back then, the stride of change in this task was downright cool. The Mint had little incentive to change the designs of these coins. Only one of the three, the Seated Liberty dime, had been made in the before decade in something approaching average records. New half dollars and quarters were barely struck at all during the 1880s, because the central government had more than enough older coins (some dating back to the late 1840s) stashed away in its vaults to convince communal necessary.
The Mint was not oblivious to the need for new designs. In his yearly describe for 1887, Mint Director James P. Kimball pointedly referred to the "prevalent require for an improvement of the penny in reverence to the bestow designs." Not awaiting 1890 did the inventories of older halves and quarters finally decline to the meaning where habitual production seemed probable to resume, making the time more propitious for giving the silver coins a classify-new look.
In 1890, Kimball protected legal underpinning for the thought of ordinary object change. He prevailed winning Congress to elapse legislation specifying that from that meaning familiar, coin designs could be misused administratively after being in use for a minimum of 25 years. The half cash, lodge and dime were eligible at once, although, in item of detail, the Mint could have untouched them, any time it sought under the banner procedures it had followed in previous living.
The notion intrigued kimball of asset a partial competition to attain new designs for the silver currency. At his urging, in 1890 the Treasury invited ten outstanding artists to acquiesce proposed designs for the half money, sector and dime. Augustus Saint-Gaudens, the citizens's pre-imminent sculptor, headed the roll of invitees.
There's little suspect that the contest would have borne impressive fruit, but before it could instigate the artists got together and drafted a set of provisos lacking which, they insisted, they wouldn't compete. Among other effects, they demanded that each entrant get $100 for each sketch that he submitted and $500 for each complete kind. The Treasury crooked them down and instead conducted a contest open to one and all. This twisted some 300 entries, but nothing deemed usable on the change.
Chief Engraver Barber proved to be the winner in the end. Frustrated by the penniless municipal entries, the Mint crooked to Barber in 1891 to invent the coins, an assignment he had popular all along. Barber came up with akin face artwork for all three coins. It features a right-facing regulate of Liberty with her wool assured up in a cap, a laurel circlet resting along her hairline and a headdress demeanor the incused inscription LIBERTY over her crest. The designer's opening (B) is at the foot of the isthmus. On the half cash and quarter, the motto IN GOD WE TRUST appears above this sketch, the court below and thirteen stars alongside.
The two larger coins also allocate an usual swap propose. It depicts a heraldic eagle with a defend on its breast, an emerald outlet clutched in its right talons and a bundle of arrows in its left talons. Inscriptions on this aspect embrace UNITED STATES OF AMERICA along the top border, the report of price along the floor and E PLURIBUS UNUM on a ribbon detained tightly in the eagle's beak. Thirteen stars are arrayed in the subject above the eagle.
All three Barber silver coins debuted in 1892, and all three had steady, unspectacular careers in the realm's coinage marshal. In the task of the Barber half money, annual production never exceeded six million pieces at any given mint; the highpoint came in 1899, when the major mint in Philadelphia made just a shade over 5.5 million. On the other hand, yearly yield never dropped below 100,000 coins at any one mint. The low point occurred in 1914, when just 124,610 half dollars were struck at Philadelphia. Besides the main mint, Barber halves also were created at the separate mints in New Orleans (O mintmark), San Francisco (S) and Denver (D), with the mintmark located below the eagle's tail. Scarce issues embrace 1892-O, 1892-S, 1893-S, 1896-S, 1901-S, 1904-S and the last three pieces from Philadelphia-1913, 1914 and 1915. However, there are no extremist rarities.
Proofs were bent every year, with mintages ranging from a high of 1,245 in the first year of flow to a low of 380 in 1914, the moment-to-last year of the string. In 1916, the Barber a new half dough replaced coin, the Walking Liberty typeface, and no resistant halves were issued.
Barber half dollars were struck for a compute of 24 existence and in 73 different year-and-mint combinations. Collectors do assemble court-and-mint sets, especially in circulated grades, but in mint chaos this coin is far more regularly calm by letters. Important records subsist in mint state levels up to MS-65, but above that the population is frail. When grading this sketch, the points on the obverse that will first show apparel are the cheek and the curls below LIBERTY; on the back, confirm the eagle's rule and the tips of the tail and wings.
The full yield of Barber half dollars for all 24 time was only about 136 million coins. That's minus than half the number of Kennedy halves struck at the Philadelphia Mint in 1964 lonely, but then Barber halves were better money. Back in 1900, a half dough would have bought a man's shirt or two pairs of suspenders. Money indeed went farther in the "good old days!"
SPECIFICATIONS:
Diameter: 30.6 millimeters Weight: 12.50 grams Composition: .900 silver.100 copper Edge: Reeded Net Weight: .36169 degree natural silver
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Breen, Walter, Walter Breen's Complete Encyclopedia of U.S.and Colonial Coins, F.C.I. Press/Doubleday, New York, 1988. Lawrence, David, The Complete Guide to Barber Halves, DLRC Press,Virginia Beach, VA, 1993. Taxay, Don, The U.S. Mint and Coinage, Arco Publishing Co.,New York, 1966. Vermeule, Cornelius, Numismatic Art in America, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1971. Yeoman, R.S., A Guide Book of United States Coins, 47th Edition, Western Publishing Co., Racine, WI, 1993.
Coin Information Provided Courtesy NGC.
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