SO-CALLED DOLLARS COMING TO DELUXE RED BOOK

It’s one tiny step for medal collectors, one giant step for So-Called Dollars. I learned this week that a select group of these silver-dollar size medals will be listed in the next edition of the Mega Red Book, the deluxe version of the standard classic of American coins, published by Whitman and edited by good friend Ken Bressett.

Makes sense. The original concept for these coin-like medals was to be as close to a silver dollar as possible without, of course, a denomination and the intent to circulate as money.

Some of these medals were actually struck at the Philadelphia Mint, others on Mint equipment hauled off to an exposition, fair grounds, or even a parade. They were extremely popular at the 1876 American Centennial Expo, the 1893 Chicago World‘s Fair, the 1904 St. Louis Exposition and the 1915 San Francisco Pan-Pacific. International Expo.

Medal maven Jeff Shevlin, recognized as the top specialist in this medallic specialty, was chosen to compile the 18-page section for the 2017 Deluxe Red Book. Jeff had the daunting task of selecting 60 so-called dollars to be listed from a population of more than 1,100 medals.

“Since the Red Book covers U.S. coins,” Jeff tells me of his selection process, “I focused on so-called dollars that had a relationship with the U.S. Mint, either designed or engraved by a U.S. Mint employee, such as Barber, Morgan or St. Gaudens, or struck by the Mint at one of the dozens of expositions it set up at.

“I selected about 45 that fall in that category, and could have selected more, but I also wanted a good cross section of other so-called dollars,” he relates.

That decision included the Erie Canal Completion Medal of 1826, the earliest in this medallic series and of historical importance. This medal is HK 1 in the standard catalog, compiled by Harold Hibler and Charles Kappen and published in 1963. These medals will forever be known by their Hibler-Kappen “HK” catalog numbers.

While the term was first used by numismatists early in the twentieth century -- for Bryan Money and Lesher Dollars – so-called dollars weren’t cataloged until 1953 when Wayte Raymond published a list of 181 compiled by one-time ANS curator Richard Kenney.

The HK book listed 1,098 varieties. However, it should be noted the criteria for inclusion in the definition of so-called dollars has shifted over the years. Shevlin estimates there could be more than 500 varieties which could be “unlisted” through 1964.

We welcome the new sampling of these medals in the Deluxe Red Book to be available in April. The introduction of medals to coin collectors will, perhaps, discover an entirely new collecting field, crossing the bridge between coins and medals. The world of medal collecting awaits your interest!

	NBS (coinbooks.org) Web