MORE ON THE ARAGON BALLROOM

I have some supplemental information on the Aragon Ballroom referenced on the encased half dollar that appeared in The E-Sylum, as well as Pacific Ocean Park in general.

When Lawrence Welk moved on to another venue, Freddy Martin's orchestra became the house band at the Aragon. This lasted only briefly, as by 1963 it was evident that the main audience for the Aragon had become teenagers, and they wanted rock bands. This led to the Aragon being renamed as the Cheetah, and it operated under this banner from early 1967 through the fall of 1968. The park itself was already closed by then, and access to the pier was made difficult by a massive urban renewal project by the City of Santa Monica that blocked many of the adjacent streets.

A number of movies and television shows were filmed at Pacific Ocean Park, including the famous climax of The Fugitive, where Dr. Kimball confronts the one-armed man who killed Kimball's wife. This final act takes place atop the park's tallest ride, and the murderer meets his end when he falls to the deck below.

POP (as it was labeled in the park's own advertisements) opened in 1957 amid great publicity, with many celebrities in attendance. The park shut down just ten years later in November of 1967, for the simple reason that it was losing too much money to repay its loans. While the Aragon did burn to the deck level of the pier, as noted in last week's issue, the deteriorating remains of POP succumbed to a series of fires, the worst being in 1973-74. All of these later fires were determined to have been acts of arson, and the local fire departments eventually stopped trying to put them out, because the pier on which the park had been built was riddled with huge holes and was unsafe for both men and equipment.

It wasn't until the fall of 1974 that actual demolition of the remains was undertaken. Since the property straddled the border of Santa Monica and Venice, there were many jurisdictional disputes. Lick Pier, on the south side, was in Venice (part of greater Los Angeles), while Ocean Park Pier was in Santa Monica. Los Angeles had the money for demolition, but Santa Monica could not put up its share until 1974. There were also a half dozen federal and state agencies that needed to approve everything, as well as the land owners who argued that the cities were not paying them what the land was worth. As this dragged on year after year, most of the privately owned land was forfeited to the city of Santa Monica for nonpayment of taxes.

The only persons who mourned the lost piers were the local "Dogtown" surfers, who found that the waves created by the pier structure were superior to any naturally occurring waves in the immediate area. These surfers were local legends, and they guarded their stretch of water fiercely against any outsiders.

First of all a correction to what was presented earlier – the Aragon Ballroom was definitely located in Ocean Park. Not in Venice and not in Santa Monica, but in Ocean Park! The location information obtained from the Internet can be confusing as city boundaries are changed over time.

Over the years the Aragon Ballroom issued a number of different encased coins, all holed as made so the encasement could be threaded onto a keychain.

Let’s begin with the simplest, an aluminum frame 35mm diameter, 1953D cent, and an inscription that provides the location Lick Pier. For many encased coins the date of the coin often provides information as to when it was manufactured. In this case I’d say 1953 or 1954.

Then a horseshoe shaped frame 35x41mm that provides a bit more location information with Ocean Park the locality and a 1953D cent, but also known with a 1954D cent, so it possibly was manufactured in 1955.

Back to the round frame with even more specificity for the locality. This encasement is known with two different cents – 1954D and 1955D suggesting manufacture in 1956.

Then comes an interesting series where a half dollar is embedded in plastic with an imprinted inscription. The clear plastic frame is 41mm diameter, 2mm thick, with an extended loop. The half dollars used for these encasements seem to have been taken from circulation, so a range of dates, mintmarks and designs are encountered meaning the date of manufacture has to be after the latest date half dollar.

Now this series comes in transparent plastic, uncolored or colored, with a hot-printed colored inscription. One piece was reported to me as a reddish brown colored frame with a white imprint, but I have never actually examined this piece. Another piece has a clear plastic frame and a red imprinted inscription, and I have only ever seen a single example.

The remaining items in this series have a red plastic frame with a gold imprinted inscription. The first of these with only an obverse inscription is quite common and is what is usually encountered for the Aragon Ballroom.

Being a ballroom, the Aragon had fox trot dance contests as evidenced by these two pieces with an inscription imprinted on the reverse, the first for SECOND PLACE and the next for THIRD PLACE. I have never seen or heard of a piece for First Place!

The final piece known to me is unusual and I have only ever encountered one example. Note the obverse inscription refers to Pacific Ocean Park.

However, it seems that the Aragon Ballroom was actually located immediately adjacent to Pacific Ocean Park, but never considered to be included in Pacific Ocean Park. This is evidenced by a thoroughly documented map as shown on the site http://www.westland.net/venicehistory/mapsdocs/poppier-map.htm.

Does anyone have encased coin varieties different from those shown here? If so, I’d appreciate have the information for my upcoming revised and updated edition of California Encased and Stickered Coins.

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see:
WAYNE'S NUMISMATIC DIARY: FEBRUARY 15, 2015 (www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v18n07a12.html)

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see:
THE ARAGON BALLROOM ENCASED FRANKLIN HALF (www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v18n07a16.html)

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