½ Dollar Columbian Exposition

Reverse

The ship Santa Maria sailing to the left above 2 half planispheres that divides the date 1493 with a legend around the rim and the date below.

Script: Latin

Lettering:
WORLD'S COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION CHICAGO
14 92
*1893*

Edge

Reeded

Comment

This coin was produced for the World's Columbian Exposition that took place between the 1st of May to October 30, 1893, in Chicago, Illinois, which celebrated the 400th anniversary of the arrival of Columbus to America.

According to Tom DeLorey Coinage, May 2016, p. 9, the Columbian Exposition half-dollar "came about when the organization putting on the World’s Fair requested a grant from the U.S. Treasury of $5 million to help build the fairgrounds so it could open." The Treasury, however, gave "only $2.5 million due to the prevailing hard economic times." DeLorey goes on to say that someone "connected with the Fair Authority got the brilliant idea that if the Treasury would provide the $2.5 million in the form of five million commemorative half dollars," then the Fair would need only "to sell the coins for a dollar each" in order to obtain the extra $2.5 million dollars needed. Because of hard economic times, however, "only a few hundred thousand were sold at the premium, the rest were either released into circulation at face value or melted."

Approximately 100 brilliant Proofs of each date were struck.

Interesting fact

Price

Date	Mintage	VG	F	VF	XF	AU	UNC
1892	950000	-	-	-	-	-	-
1893	1550405	-	-	-	-	-	-

Values in the table are based on evaluations by sales realized on Internet platforms. They serve as an indication only for ½ Dollar (Columbian Exposition) 1892-1893 coin.