DESIGNING THE PEACE DOLLAR

The Peace dollar is often overshadowed by the Morgan dollar. The roughly 187 million Peace dollars struck between 1921 and 1935 was a fraction of the half billion Morgan dollars struck in their time, between 1878 and 1904 and again in 1921. Collectors are often content to have a single example of the high relief 1921 Peace dollar and the modified, lower relief 1922 to 1935 issues for type purposes in their collections, favoring to collect instead the romantic Morgan dollar that brings to mind the Old West.

The story of the coin, from the frantic production of the new high relief design in the last week of 1921, the controversy over the design reverse’s symbolism and the romantic notion that designer Anthony de Francisci based Liberty’s head off of the features of his new bride make the series irresistible.

It might surprise many to learn that the first Peace dollars weren’t struck until late December 1921. In 1920, U.S. Mint engraver George T. Morgan was called upon to revisit his Morgan dollar design and to produce dies for the production of new silver dollars as millions of new dollars were needed to replace silver dollars that were melted under the Pittman Silver Purchase Act of 1918. In short, the act required the U.S. government to sell silver to the United Kingdom, and this was met by melting more than 270 million silver dollars.

In his 2012 A Guide Book of Peace Dollars, Roger Burdette called the Peace dollar “something of a mystery coin since it was first released to the public on December 20, 1921.” He wrote, “Initial press releases told conflicting tales of its design and promoted the sculptor’s use of his attractive wife as a model. Only the most superficial information was publicly released on how the coin came into existence.”

de Francisci with his wife; de Francisci working on the dollar reverse

Anthony de Francisci was, along with most sculptors in the United States, consumed with producing wartime memorials, sculptures and medals commemorating World War I in the years immediately after the Great War ended.

For the Peace dollar design, de Francisci drew upon work for items he had recently completed, including the Verdun city medal and the Peace of Versailles medal design. Trial sketches for the reverse show the artist experimenting with a flying eagle not dissimilar to that used on Augustus Saint-Gaudens’ double eagle and an eagle breaking a sword that looks to Weinman’s Walking Liberty half dollar, with nods to the eagle seen on Bela Lyon Pratt’s sunken Indian Head gold $5 half eagle and $2.50 quarter eagle.

1920 relief of artist's wife; 1927 Mining Award medal
Images courtesy Smithsonian American Art Museum

De Francisci’s Peace dollar design shows parallels to his other work. The use of visible sun rays is a motif that he used in many designs, including those he prepared for the 1938 Jefferson 5-cent competition that he lost to Felix Schlag.

1938 Jefferson Nickel Designs
Photo Credits: Heritage; Smithsonian American Art Museum

To read the article on the Coin World site, see:
Collecting the Peace dollar (www.coinworld.com/news/us-coins/2015/09/the-intriguing-history-the-peace-dollar.html)

	NBS (coinbooks.org) Web