1923 $1 Peace Dollar, Counter-stamped '1978 Camp David Peace Summit', NGC MS63

Commemorating this historic event upon a coin was the brainchild of Mel Wacks, who founded the Jewish-American Hall of Fame in 1969; it became a division of the American Jewish Historical Society in 2001. It was Mel Wacks whose idea it was to counter-stamp Peace dollars to honor Camp David Summit of 1978. He writes, "While I was watching this historic event on television I was inspired to commemorate it. And I immediately thought of counter-stamping 'Peace' Silver Dollars (that were issued beginning in 1921 to celebrate the end of World War I)..." The first artist he asked to attempt it was not successful, so he reached out to "Adam Cool, who had created a number of counterstamped coins for the American Israel Numismatic Association. Adam was successful, so we photographed it and sent out press releases ... after the event had occurred." What happened next was that the press release and a photo of the counter-stamped coin was featured in the coin column of the Sunday New York Times. Wacks continues, "and then all hell broke loose! In a few days the mailman started bringing piles of envelopes with orders. The continued day after day, and within a...short time the entire...mintage of 1,000 pieces was sold."