1915-S 50C Panama-Pacific Silver Commemorative NGC MS64

Rare and popular commemorative half dollar!

U.S. Mint Chief Engraver Charles E. Barber crafted quite an aesthetically pleasing and artistic obverse design. It presents the image of Columbia tossing flowers from a cornucopia held by a cupid. George T. Morgan adapted his famous eagle from the Morgan dollar for the reverse of this dramatic issue. It is perched upon a Union shield, within a wreath composed of an oak branch (left) and an olive branch (right). This is rare with its mintage of 27,134. NGC has graded 1,038 as MS64, with 870 finer. The Collectors Universe price for this issue is $1,650.00 in MS64.

Poster of the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco. Image: Wikimedia Commons.

Distribution of the coins was conducted by Farran Zerbe, a past American Numismatic Association President and well-known numismatic publicist. Before the coins were produced, tens of thousands of the attractive half dollars were pre-sold by Zerbe at $1 each. The authorized mintage of the Pan-Pac half dollar was 200,000, however the San Francisco Mint minted only 60,000 of them during the Exposition. Of those, 32,866 did not sell and were eventually melted. That left a net mintage of 27,134 coins of this rare and popular commemorative half dollar.