Columbian Exposition Half Dollar - Sale and Aftermath

Sale and Aftermath

Ellsworth clipped one article criticizing the new coin and sent it to both Barber and Warner. Barber responded angrily with a five-page rebuttal, and suggesting that the Chicago newspapers not print "the opinions of people who display a deplorable amount of ignorance and likewise seem inclined to say 'Stinking Fish' ". Warner reacted with resignation, stating that he had not yet seen the new coin "but I'll wager it doesn't look like the model". A major objection by critics was that Barber had lowered the relief of Warner's badge to ensure the new coins met the standards of circulating coins and could stack properly; critics saw this as unnecessary as the coins were to be merely souvenirs, unlikely to enter circulation.

A number of proof coins were issued at the suggestion of Barber and Superintendent Bosbyshell. Ellsworth was enthusiastic, intending the special strikes as gifts, but was forced to share them with Company president Higinbotham, to Ellsworth's dismay. The proof coins for the year 1892 represented the first hundred coins struck, as well as numbers 400, 1492, and 1892. The total number of proof coins struck for 1893 is less certain: R.S. Yeoman's A Guide Book of United States Coins states that approximately 100 proofs were struck for 1893, but numismatist Ira Goldberg in a 2011 article gives the number as fewer than ten. The first coin struck in the year 1893, in proof, is in the possession of the Chicago Historical Society. The Mint gave consideration to including the Columbian half dollar in proof sets, but at the time it sold proof coins for only a few cents above face value, and it would have to sell the proof Columbians for more than $1 so as to avoid devaluing the uncirculated commemoratives. Mint authorities decided against a public sale of proof Columbians.

With the New Year, the coins were dated 1893; just over four million of the authorized mintage were struck with an 1893 date, with the remainder dated 1892. A total of 5,002,105 Columbian half dollars were struck, with the excess over the authorized mintage designated for inspection by the annual Assay Commission. By February 1893, sales had fallen off dramatically. The Exposition Company deposited 2,000,000 half dollars in Chicago banks as security for loans. In March, Congress impounded an additional 1,141,700 half dollars to cover costs advanced by the government, such as the expense of judging exhibits and providing medals to the exhibitors. The Company could redeem the half dollars if it agreed to fund that expense, which it refused to do, calling the government's action a breach of faith. In return, the Company stated it was no longer bound by a provision of the 1892 act, which forbade the fair from opening on Sundays.

Sales during the fair itself were promoted by such stunts as constructing a model of the Washington, D.C. Treasury Building out of the new half dollars, 20 feet (6.1 m) long and 4 feet (1.2 m) high. These coins were available for purchase, but could not be claimed until after the fair closed. In June 1893, fair authorities had half dollars stacked as a model of the Washington Monument, 22 feet (6.7 m) tall. When the fair closed in October, large quantities of the half dollar remained in the hands of exposition organizers, the Treasury, and the Chicago banks—only 358,645 were sold to the public at the $1 price.

With the fair closed, the question remained what to do with the some 4,600,000 half dollars which had not been sold. Organizers did not wish them to be issued, to preserve the premium price paid by purchasers. Those remaining in the Company's hands were redeemed by the Mint, which melted them; the fee for this service was forgiven by act of Congress. The coins which had been impounded by the Treasury were offered for sale at face value beginning in October 1894; when there were few takers, they were released into circulation. A million coins held by the Chicago banks were also placed in circulation. Although 2,501,700 half dollars were melted (all dated 1893), this still left a like number of Columbians in public hands. Coin dealer and numismatic historian Q. David Bowers recalls that when he began collecting coins as a boy in the 1950s, the Columbians were among the most common 19th-century pieces remaining in circulation. It was not until the 1930s that the pieces, in uncirculated condition, commanded the original price of $1. Prices began to rise as silver coins were replaced by base metal ones in the 1960s. In the 2012 version of Yeoman's catalog, both pieces are listed at under $20 in almost uncirculated (AU-50) condition, with specimens in near-pristine MS-66 selling for over a thousand dollars.

One reason for the lack of sales, and for the poor condition of many surviving specimens, was that while the fair was open, the economic Panic of 1893 began, one of the worst depressions in the nation's history—fifty cents could make the difference between a family eating or starving at a time when the average visitor to the fair spent $1.18. Fairgoers were disinclined to exchange a dollar for a fifty-cent piece, and those who had bought before the crash often spent their souvenirs.