1892 U.S. 50¢ - Columbian Exposition Half Dollar - NGC MS65
- Grading Service: Numismatic Guaranty Corporation - NGC
- Grade: Mint State 65 - MS65
- Certification: 3091650-009
- Country: United States
- Type: Circulating Commemorative Coin
- Years: 1892-1893
- Mint: United States Mint - Philadelphia (1792-Date)
- Denomination: 50 Cents = 1/2 USD
- Currency: Dollar (1785-Date)
- Composition: .900 Sivler
- Diameter: 30.6mm
- Weight: 12.5g
- Edge: Reeded
- Mintage: 950,000
- Obverse: Portrait of Columbus facing right with the denomination below
- Reverse: The ship Santa Maria sailing to the left above 2 half planispheres that divides the date 1492 with a legend around the rim and the date below
- Reference: KM# 117
- Commemorative Issue: Columbian Exposition
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."
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