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Seven Commemorative Coins You Should Own Even If You Hate Commems
Apr 9, 2020
Think commemorative coins are for suckers? In many cases, you may be right. But there are great coins from the long-slighted series that should be in your collection and at today's prices, you'd be a sucker not to consider picking a few of them up. CoinWeek Editor Charles Morgan dishes on his favorites.
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[Music]
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hey everybody this is coin week editor of Charles Morgan how are you doing it's
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Thursday another week of the cuff pocalypse is wrapping up for all of you
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guys suck at home hope you're safe hope your families are safe your friends and loved ones hope you're keeping in touch
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with everybody and for those of you who do not have the good fortune to extricate yourself from a situation or
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out there serving people helping people being there for people who need you
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thank you I'm Charles Morgan in the other of coin week and all the past few weeks we've
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been on the air streaming live bringing you new information about coin collecting and trying to keep you
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motivated to continue this great hobby and as we continue I have quite a few
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interesting coins to talk about today I decided that I would I would do a stream
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on the 7 coins from the classic
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commemorative series that you should consider even if you think commemorative
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coins are overrated overpriced even now if there are historically low levels for
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the modern coin market period uh even if the idea of putting a set of 50 or 100
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40 plus coins together design cup of tea there are coins in the series that rise
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to a level of such importance but I think it's not an over statement to say these works of
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numismatic art represents some of the best that American design and should be in your collection I will go into detail
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today and discuss these coins and and big in myself here in the screen and and
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I will I will share with you my thoughts based on years of research and hands-on
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experience looking at these coins and I hope that from the stream you will be motivated to go out there and contact
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some of your favorite dealers dealers like cleanly sponsors LNC coins they
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carry a deep collection or selection of certified coins from eg C and P suggest including
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mini coins from tech org legend numismatics and legend rare coin auctions which puts on great hand
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curated collections of coins that their expert cataloguers and market
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participants judge to be among the best coins from their own customers
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collections and select consignments or take advantage of the time to look at
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the upcoming auctions from stacks bowers or heritage auctions all these great Queen week partners and more I have a
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collection selection of classic commemorative coins that you should be
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more than able to get any of the coins on our list today some of the coins on our lists are very affordable I would
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say and some of the coins are not but all of these have a unique place in the
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current hobby and we will share them with you one at a time starting with our
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first coin here and this coin is the 1921 Antietam 2x2 half-dollar the coin
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was designed by one of my favorite US sculptors of coins and medals Laura
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garden Frazer the wife of James Earle
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Fraser who did the Washington James Earle Fraser to the buffalo nickel
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my apologies mr. Flannagan so Laura
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garden Fraser did a number of great commemorative coin designs I think this is one of her best it's very balanced
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coin design features a William Wyatt been the first governor of Alabama and
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Thomas II Kilby who is alive at the time the coin was struck which is a big no-no
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he was the governor of Alabama at the time the 22 stars you see in the obverse
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to the right and the left of the Q gated bus portraiture represent the fact that
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Alabama was the 22nd state admitted into the union now what differentiates the
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Alabama two-by-two in the regular Alabama and which makes the to buy too much scare sir is the the fact that the
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2x2 was stamped on the coin on the obverse to the right of the busts and
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you can see that in the illustration that we have posted six thousand and six of these were struck I think six were
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made for assay and this was done pretty much at the behest of James Earle Fraser
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who sort of told the Centennial committee that the Missouri two-by-four
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which had a low mintage was very popular and so of course you know the committee's want to sell these coins
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they usually the thing that's going price sold for dollar double-faced and then they use the funds help fund the
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centennial celebrations or at least recover some of the costs a lot of times it didn't work they didn't have enough
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people to buy them but in this case it did so collectors have long wanted this
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two by two now the interesting thing about this coin about 7.9 percent of the
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total mintage of 6006 is certified right now in grades Jim or better I presume I
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say Ms sixty-five is the long long-held benchmark for Jim although I think our
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grading standards have sort of softened over time over the past 30 years I think a ms 65 coin today might have been you
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know four so about thirty years ago but okay I'm gonna keep that standard or so
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Steve five so if you had 7.9 percent of that minute is certified in 65 or better
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what is the typical grade well the typical grade is going to be between a three and a five and that's based on NGC
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and PCGS population reports and that does include crossovers and resubmissions and so when you look at
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the price points based on what I've seen these these trade hands quite regularly
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and you will see the price point for about $300 for an MS 63 that's about 800
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for 65 and you know of course certain types of toning and CAC certification
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and very high I appeal may bring more but this is your range so I think if you're a collector and you just want an
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example just get a coin within these parameters and you'll be okay
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I consider the MS 65 grade though around 800 dollars to be a buying opportunity grade and if you look at what P Q ms-64
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is traded for they were trained for about 900 dollars in the 1990s
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so at PQ 64's from a decade or two ago or today 65 s then you see this coin has
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probably shaved off about $100 in that time period and I think that that
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represents the possibility that if the coin has any action in the future you are not buying at an inflated price
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moving on to our the second coin I selected that is the 1937 Antietam
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half-dollar there gonna be a few coins folks there there's basically a four
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coin set of Civil War classic commemoratives that's often put together and that will be the Antietam the
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Lincoln the grant and the Gettysburg we're gonna have three of those four on
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our list and I'll explain why in a second once you see all of them in
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totality you'll understand I think so the Antietam coin was designed by
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William Marx Simpson the Washington Historical Society of Hagerstown
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Maryland a bead for this coin to be produced they were holding a big exhibition to
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celebrate the Antietam and a Virgo I guess the anniversary was a little bit
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past but to celebrate Antietam and the area and that their Civil War history
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and they lobbied Democratic senator Miller titans of Maryland to draft the
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bill who and he did so the legislation was authorized they sold these coins for a dollar sixty-five and they would sell
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you any quantity you wanted at that price and and as far as the historical
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legacy of Antietam is one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War which was fought to a draw more or less but
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when you're the Confederacy and you have a much smaller army a draw is not good enough that's akin to being down several
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armies at risk and you know you you go attack the more powerful forces and you
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Whittle them down but neither but you don't gain any territory and at the end you're left with fewer armies and that's
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kind of what happened to to the to the Confederate side as a result of Antietam
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and of course that halts their northern advance I love the motifs here you have General
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George McClellan and robert e lee and jew gate on the obverse and the reverse
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has that amazing scenery from the battlefield site itself the bridge were
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a major battle took place I just love the way this looks it's full of its full of sort of
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character it feels the weight of history the relief is sufficiently high enough
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that the motif does not appear flat and I think that this is when you are a
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modern coin designer tasked with drawing or representing history on a coin I
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think you should use the canvas of the coin and the features of striking and
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relief to bring out a representation that makes you feel like you can imagine
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being there and too much of modern coin design I think is flat and your typical
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grade here then antonyms can go from 64 to 65 there are there are quantity of 66
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s this is a coin that I think overall had a more or less limited upside when
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the series was at its peak because most of these coins came nice and that that
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is indicative of the price point you see here this five to six hundred dollars I have it really doesn't matter you can
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you can you can get a a nice one in either grade around that that price point they get a little bit more
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expensive at six and then to get a peek you super-nice antietam one that
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differentiates itself from the rest of the series you got to go up to 67 these
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look great with color there's a lot of nice toners these you can see somewhat
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tab toning and there's a lot of really rich red tone examples of red green
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yellow so if you're if you're in the high end there are antonyms out there
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for you as far as the certifcate certified population and Jim again I was
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telling you that most of these come nights well that's an fact that there are five thousand seven hundred and
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forty two grading instances reported by PCGS NGC and grades 65 and above that
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represents thirty-one point eight percent of the total mintage that's something that you want to keep in mind
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the coin of course was designed by William March Simpson I think he did a fantastic job on the Antietam let's move
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on another coin that I love in hand this is the 1935 Connecticut tercentenary
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half-dollar which features a beautiful design and very high relief for the time
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this is a coin where the the beautiful Charter Oak and you see that excuse me
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that opening this is a very stylized representation that oak tree the real treat doesn't look very much
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like it's much more scraggly but this was a this was represented as a one thousand year old tree and of course it
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is no longer with us it was felled by lightning an August 21 1856 so the tree
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was long gone by the time this clean was produced and the tree is famous due to a
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caper that occurred in 1587 when Joseph wodsworth hid the Kings Charter
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authorizing the Connecticut collie he hid in that cavity on the oak tree so it
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would not be seized by the governor Edmund Andros and Andros intended to
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seize the Charter and fold all these New England colonies into one Dominion under his control that he never got away with
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it there was a very rare map proof of this coin that was that exists that was in
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John Arsenic the chief engravers estate came to market a few decades ago I think
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it was first discovered in 1960 or first auction 1962 the distribution of the
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Connecticut half-dollar is believed 25,000 and 18 pieces it's neither the
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rarest or the you know most scarce and condition of the classic commemoratives
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but it is a coin with tremendous character and it is a coin you will love to hold and look at and it's a great
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piece of American colonial history and that is why I love it and I recommend it
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and that two to three hundred dollars folks that is a great price point even if you're not going to get into the
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whole commemorative series it's a cool coin you're going to fill that dance go 70 70 and e4 classic commemorative
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half-dollars why not make this one of them moving on let's go to 1936
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Gettysburg the second of my civil war trifecta of the three of the four coins
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from that Civil War set that I recommend you pick up I love the Gettysburg half-dollar I love
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the dish look at that way the inscription United States of America
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blue and gray reunion is elevated but then carved out is the Confederate and Union soldier
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again heads in jew gate this time facing right left on the reverse similar the
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shield banners of the Union and the Confederate government's with the faces
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and the double-headed axe of the center and this is just balanced bold beautiful
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historic makes you want to be there in fact I used to live in Gettysburg and
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this coin is so evocative the coin was struck to honor the blue and gray
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reunion this marked the 75th anniversary of the battle it was such an important
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gallery as last time Confederate soldiers and Union soldiers really got to be together and massed
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this time they weren't shooting at each other but came together in the bonds of brotherhood President Franklin Roosevelt
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showed up to dedicate the eternal flame eternal light peace memorial which you
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can go visit it's right off of Route 30 as you leave Gettysburg to go towards Chambersburg Pennsylvania and there's a
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nice park there and that in fact that the entire town is a park essentially so
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the sculptor was Frank Vitter of pencil Pittsburgh Pennsylvania and I think he did a great job on this
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and then our interestingly you wouldn't know it by looking at neighbor he's an Italian born sculptor his actual
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birthday was francesco fabio Vettori and he lived from 1888 to 1968 and he
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has a great statue of Columbus it's 50 foot statue that's in Pittsburgh you can
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go visit that there's a money maker store called marker fair he also did the Statue of Honus Wagner which is outside
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of PNC Park in Pittsburgh that that's at she's actually been at every Pirates baseball field since it was originally
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installed at Forbes Field during the ders life and the grades of m/s 65 and
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up you see the Gettysburg coin has seventeen percent of its total mintage
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certified never better the typical grades going to be ms-64 ems 65 with a typical price of 450 to 600
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dollars a piece I think that if you look
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at the buying opportunity for an investor I think the great to look at this 67 not the plus but the 67 and
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definitely not the 8 right now you have 216 67 is graded at both services and if
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you double the amount mmm yes about double the amount of what existed 15 years ago so I don't see that I don't
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see the numbers doubling again without some significant grade inflation and a painstaking search for a nice MS
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67 in my opinion will real well yield to you a point as future-proof so I think
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coins that just eke out the greatest 67 will bring about fifteen hundred dollars and to get a super nice one you're
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probably in the two thousand dollar range I would recommend you go to a dealer who can who can identify a PQ
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coin and source one for you I wouldn't just go out in the market get the first thing that comes along your great
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gettysburg coins will be have this like watery luster to them you want to avoid
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ring ticks or marks on the faces of the
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of the soldiers and I chose this coin it's actually a pretty nice coin but I
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chose this one because on the Confederate soldier on the jaw you can see a typical tick and I wanted you to
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be aware of it you can't really hide those ticks or dings on the reverse on the shields they just they're just
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really apparent and remember many of these commemorative coins they were probably swear they were probably struck
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they were probably what we would say 67 or 68 based on their striking standards
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at the time the care that was taken to ship them many of these got you know
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dinged or marked up before they were sold to the public but then when they were sold to the general public they had
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a different standard for care so that's why you don't see 69s and seventies of
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these coins you see 64 is five and six so that's a that's a great coin I really
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love it and again the dish folks that dishes everything when you want to look at coin design coins need that nice dish
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that's what brings out the detail and I wish we would get back to dish poins and not flat coins like we make now but
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that's just my um that's just my very angry diatribe about that moving on
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another great coin and this is the third of the four III leave the Lincoln out of the four because I don't really think
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it's an essential coin I think that we we have plenty of Lincoln to go around with the Lincoln Cent everything I would
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like to see other things though represented in my collection if I had to narrow the list down and so I picked
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this one this is the 1922 grant with star like the Alabama to buy to the Missouri to buy for the grant with star
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is the rare variety purposely purposeful rarity made by the organizers in order
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to sell something special this has a star above grants name on the obverse of
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the coin this is another great lure garden Fraser point which to me you
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could take the obverse which I'm glad to see grant on a coin to be frank you can think that offers they just couldn't
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completely discount it and my mind my imagination when I think of this coin I think in that very lovely cabin seen on
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the reverse which represents Grant's birthplace I love that I just think it's
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so beautiful there according to Anthony swaiiow Tech one of the mister come in
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one of the key researchers a commemorative coins he he believes that there are two dye varieties of the
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reverse of this coin there's the standard one and then one that has polish features at some of the details
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in the tree line canopy above the cottage are white marker I guess
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polished off and also the but there is no as far as I can tell big cherry
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pickers die premium for one over the other the star is the leading thing you
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will look for the typical grade of the grant with SAR is lower than you would
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expect based on the other grades we've seen this one is 63 and 64 and your typical
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price point is going to be between 1500 and 1800 dollars the sculpt of grant is
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based on a Matthew Brady photograph by the way when you look at the gym population there's 254 at PCGS 300
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before at NGC combined that represents 13% of the total mintage in gym and that
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again includes resubmissions and crossovers so the actual number is probably a little lower here's a protip
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something that you may want to take into account I don't know if it holds true
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anymore but historically NGC or PCGS graded these coins roughly the same up
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so I think the grades are right 66 are higher I'm not suggesting that one's
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company was right no one was wrong they just had a different approach to it so
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because of that approach to the PCGS coins historically above 66 we're
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bringing significantly more money in the market my advice is this if you know the
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coin you are the great equalizer you can bind great accurately graded NGC coins
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and six seven and eight and to vouch for that you can see a number of those
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points with CAC stickers so John a venes who is a one of the biggest market
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makers in the industry believes that they're accurately graded technically graded strong for the great it's good
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enough for me and it's good enough for most of the market so I would say buy a cat coin with nice eye appeal or know
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the coins pretty well yourself and then it doesn't matter there's no need in this market to pay a significant premium
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for branding of one service over the other just know your coin and buy at a
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price level that is appropriate for what the coin is that's my advice to you there but yeah I love this I grant with
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Starr again four thousand two hundred fifty six with makes it the law I think the lowest mintage
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of the silver commemoratives 67 thousand four hundred five regular grants and of
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course this coin gets really interesting when you get into the gold which I did
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not include in our video today but I do have some gold coins for you in fact I
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have two two must-haves if you can afford them the first one is the 1915 s
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pan packed gold $2 50 cent coin this is the first San Francisco mint
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commemorative in the series it is a beautiful coin that is executed designed
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by Charles barber on the obverse though I believe is underrated and George T
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Morgan on the Reavers on the obverse you feech that you see Columbia she's a stride of mythical hippocampus and she
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is holding aloft in her right hand a caduceus of course this represents the
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construction of the Panama Canal which is the the the canal that connected the
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east coast of the United States to the Pacific coast the United States through
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maritime travel the hippocampus this mythical sea creature you know in
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essence represents all of the economic benefit that canal would bring to the
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American people into the world and then on the reverse you see that elegant
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signpost EEP Laura soon and with the eagle on it looking towards the west again this is a canal being a monument
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to American industry innovation and struggle and hardship that caduceus of
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course I think represents all the medical challenges with the malaria outbreak and that many people died in
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the construction of the Panama Canal is a very difficult you would say
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boondoggle but ultimately every it yielded one of the most significant
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man-made water features in the world so the distribution at this point was
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relatively low six thousand seven hundred forty nine pieces and your typical grade is going to be ms-64 2ms
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66 now I picked this piece this piece is one of the nicest ones again images many of these images are
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courtesy of PCGS and we thank them for allowing us to use their images but if
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you look at the head of a Columbia you see it is not very well defined this is about as good as they come and when you
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consider a year later 1916 we have the Standing Liberty quarter which also has issues with how defined the head is of
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course you have Augustus saint-gaudens twenty dollar Liberty coin another head on coin which is very difficult to get a
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lot of good detail on the head heads are very difficult to find fully struck and I would say that it's something to keep
27:10
in mind when you're buying a piece most of them are very rounded it like much in detail at all but the detail typically
27:17
is quite nice on the Eagle and on the scales in the hippocampus usually a pretty well struck but this is about as
27:24
good as they come in the typical grades of ms-64 2ms 66 you're looking at a four
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thousand to four thousand five hundred dollar coin and much much more when you
27:35
get higher into the grading spectrum there are eleven hundred ninety five pieces at ms 65 plus 1 both grading
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services certified that represents 36% of the mintage it is said that some of
27:48
these coins made it in the circulation but I have yet to see XF 40 or 45 I
27:53
think those would be really neat to see if you're a lowball collector of course
27:59
Farren zhurba is connected to this coin he was a he was a very interesting
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figure in american numismatics a giant figure in American Numismatic sin the first half of the century and he of
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course was one of the biggest promoters the industry had until B max mail came and and sort of out zhurba to him but
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anyway serba was you know part of the commemoration of the pan pact you led
28:29
the coin and metals program there and this is one of four or five coins I
28:35
guess you have a the fifty dollar octagonal and round the 250 gold the
28:41
dollar gold and the half so these were the coins that Zuri had
28:46
worked to get struck to sell at the 5th
28:51
of the 1915 Exposition last coin in the list is a coin is aspirational and not
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everybody's gonna be able to swing this coin but if you could only have one
29:03
six-figure coin in your collection I would say this 1915 s pan tackled $50
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round would be the one I would buy I was beautiful designed executed by Robert Aitken a distribution of only 483 pieces
29:19
and the typical grade is ms 62 to 64 I've have it on good authority that many
29:25
of these 1915 s pan packs have been messed with over time and I don't know
29:32
if the 62 to 64 represents that grading of them or if some of them just will not
29:38
grade anymore due to the way their services have been messed with this is a
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beautiful example of it of course you have Athena on the obverse she's wearing
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her headgear and she has Zeus's Aegis over there over her shoulder you see
29:57
again nice beaded border where where her
30:02
design is a feature inside nine states of america $50 on the obverse
30:08
panama-pacific exposition in San Francisco the reverse and the owl Athena's al there were some pinecones
30:14
and just a really great motif of one of the most beautiful American coins ever
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struck if not the most beautiful in my opinion and as a coin that is quite rare
30:27
and again the typical woman's gonna be between 62 and 64 and you're looking at
30:35
$65,000 to $115,000 and this is on the low end folks because these things go
30:41
for around quarter of a million dollars once you start getting into the conditionally rare ones the best of the
30:47
best but you can't have you can't have that can't have them all so if if this
30:53
coin or another is something that maybe is out of you're out of you're out of your league right
30:59
now there are coins on this list that you definitely can't pick up should pick up and you will love if you do pick up
31:06
so that does it there's my list my seven coins from the classic commemorative
31:12
series I just can't get enough of every time I see one or haul one especially a nice one I always get a good feeling of
31:19
of admiration for just where American metallic art was at the beginning of
31:26
this century I'm gonna do this again seven modern commemorative coins that
31:31
you should pick up if you ain't commemoratives you think I can do anything I come up with seven really good ones for my 1886 on I don't know
31:38
I've been looking I'm hoping I can come up with a list I have collected many of them but again when you get to the
31:45
modern series you're looking at coins that have a low basal value because the
31:50
very high mintage numbers but we have Believe It or Not a much longer period
31:57
and Morse is a longer sustained period of coin production for the modern series in the classic series and that wasn't
32:03
always the case so I'll look at coins from 1982 with the George Washington
32:09
half-dollar all the way up to the present to see if I come up with seven coins that I think maybe maybe are
32:15
worthy of your attention I'll be back tomorrow with some price analysis that
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were working on me and humor to working on and this is some graphs and
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historical grasp provided us by our friend Russ Augustine at a new capital management their firm keeps very
32:33
detailed records of generic coin prices for the past several decades and we're
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going to see how they've been performing and to see if there's any insights you can draw from that on Saturday we'll
32:44
have a new podcast we have one on Wednesday with Peter hug from KidCo definitely check that out don't miss
32:50
that because we go to quite a bit of detail about where the gold market is so why it's behaving the way it's behaving and why some dealers spot prices are
32:58
well above the or by prices are much higher than spot price we explain who is
33:04
making money and all the different levels of distribution but I'm with we'll have a new podcast a numismatic
33:11
sort of a topic with Bill Ekberg Rafi AC where we talked about where the United
33:17
States Mint sourced its copper plant shits for half cents and cents and the
33:22
late 18th century to the 19th century and how the transportation of these copper planets may or may not have
33:30
affected the quality of the coins that were struck with them so we'll go into that we bill and I have recorded that
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interview it's a great insightful interview I'm editing at the moment and I'll have that for you on Saturday so
33:42
for coin week I'm editor Charles Morgan I'm glad you stopped by today I hope you have a great rest of the afternoon and
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we'll be back with more great content about coin collecting from coin week take care of buddy and happy collecting