Thomas Woodrow Wilson barely won re-choice as 28th president of the United States, campaigning on the slogan, "He kept us out of war!" Within a few months, American troops would be route for Europe after all. Mack Sennett's Keystone Kops were making millions laugh in the state's film houses, while New York's Wally Pipp home-run ruler in baseball's American League.
The year was 1916, and America was a realm in ferment. It was a time of transition: from steed and pram to horseless carriage ... Farms to cities ... Domestic tranquility to alien entanglement ... Concord to war.
Major changes were taking place in United States money, too. Within the earlier decade, exciting new designs had debuted on six different U.S. coins, supplanting the quiet, dull 19th-century portraits that preceded them. And now, in 1916, three more old-smartness coins-the Barber silver coins-course for the sidelines as well.
Outside artists not on the wand of the U.S. Mint had furnished new designs for the six preceding changes, and Mint Director Robert W. Woolley showed his satisfaction by open scarce again. In 1915, he invited three noted sculptors-Hermon A. MacNeil, Albin Polasek and Adolph A. Weinman, all New York City-to prime designs for the three silver coins, apparently with the intention of awarding a different coin to each artist. The Mint may not have intended it this way, but Weinman useless up receiving two of the three coins, the dime and half cash, with MacNeil receiving the area and Polasek being closed out. It's hard to picture how Polasek or somebody moreover could have improved on the charming entries, although, for all three of the new coins-the Mercury dime, Standing Liberty area and Walking Liberty half money-are magnificent money artworks.
A.A. Weinman was born in Germany but came to the United States at the age of ten in 1880. He honed his skills as a student of the infamous Augustus Saint-Gaudens and, by 1915, he was commonly acclaimed as one of the homeland's finest sculptors.
For the frontage of his intention, Weinman chose a gorged-span numeral of Liberty striding near the dawning of a new day, clad in the Stars and Stripes and hauling twigs of laurel and oak symbolizing civil and military glory. The switch depicts an imposing eagle balanced on a mountain cliff, wings stretched in a pose suggesting right, with a sprout of mountain pine-symbolic of America springing from a schism in the swing. These brightly partisan themes resonated wholly across a state then preparing to record World War I, ironically against the land of Weinman's birth. Weinman placed his initials (AW) speedily under the eagle's tailfeathers.
Unlike the other two Barber coins, the Barber half buck wasn't bent in 1916. Even so, the Mint delayed release of the new Walking Liberty coin pending tardy November. It drew abrupt praise. The New York Sun, for example, pronounced it a "lively" coin, typifying "jostle," while the Boston Herald said it had a "brazen look on its face."
First-year coins from the turn mints in Denver and San Francisco take the "D" or "S" mintmark on the frontage, below IN GOD WE TRUST, as do some pieces minted the next year. Partway through production in 1917, the mintmarks' spot was motivated to the decrease left of the setback, just below the sapling, and that's where it remained pending the cycle defunct in 1947.
Over 485 million Walking Liberty halves were made between 1916 and 1947, but they were issued only sporadically during the 1920s and early '30s, nothing being minted in 1922, 1924-26 and 1930-32. These coins with substantial selling capacity, enough to buy a mooch of bread, a quart of milk and a dozen eggs in the early '30s, so it didn't take titanic quantities to stop Americans' wishes, especially after the Wall Street breakdown plunged the nation into the Great Depression.
Mintages were particularly low in 1921, and the P, D and S half dollars from that year all rank among the chief keys of the sequence. Other scarce issues contain the 1916, 1916-S, 1917-D and S (with the mintmarks on the facade) and 1938-D. Brilliant proofs were minted from 1936 to 1942, adding 74,400 pieces, and a very few satin-polish proofs were struck in 1916 and '17.
"Walkers," as they're frequently called, are large, precious-metal coins with a, much-admired goal. As a result, they presume great allure not only for traditional hobbyists but also for non-collectors. Many subsist in grades up to Mint State-65. Even above that reading, significant figures live for certain dates, particularly the later existence. Most dates, however, come weakly struck, particularly on Liberty's left hand and leg, supervise and skirt outline and on the eagle's breast and leg down. Sharply struck coins often mandate substantial premiums. In an effort to expand the salient characteristics of the figure, chief Engraver George made some lesser modifications T. Morgan in 1918 and again by Assistant Engraver John R. Sinnock in 1937 and 1938. None of the revisions seemed to help, as even later issues are often weak in the principal parts of the motif. Places to stop for carry compose Liberty's regulate, breast, arms and left leg and the breast, leg and forward wing of the eagle.
A stuffed set consists of 65 different time-and-mint combinations but is attempted and completed by many collectors. Although Walkers were not saved in any extent by the shared, particularly in the Depression living, professional numismatists like Wayte Raymond and others put away many early rolls during the '30s. Uncirculated specimens of certain dates in the 1910s and '20s are possibly only vacant today due to the insight of these astute dealers. Later-date Walkers also have a strong following: many collectors assemble "sharp sets" from 1934 to 1947 or 1941 to '47. Type collectors just obtain a distinct, high-grade example.
The Franklin the dollar succeeded the Walker in 1948. Nevertheless 38 years later, in 1986, Uncle Sam dusted off the Weinman create for the obverse of the one-degree American Eagle silver gold coin, which has been minted annually ever since.
SPECIFICATIONS:
Diameter: 30.6 millimeters Weight: 12.50 grams Composition: .900 silver.100 copper Edge: Reeded Net Weight: .36169 little untainted silver
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Breen, Walter, Walter Breen's Complete Encyclopedia of U.S. and Colonial Coins, F.C.I. Press/Doubleday, New York, 1988. Fox, Bruce, The Complete Guide To Walking Liberty Half Dollars, 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.
0 comments:
Post a Comment