United States' Commemoratives

Overview of the Series

The United States produced the first commemorative coin for the 1892 World's Columbian Exposition meant to commemmorate the 400th anniversary of Columbus "discovering" America. Part of the purpose of commemoratives, besides commemorating something, was to raise money for a related group. For example, the upcomming 2011 boy scout commemorative coin is mandated that $10 of each sale goes to the boy scouts ... and I choose not to comment on that further.

Commemorative coins continued to be made through about 1954, by which time it had gotten out of hand. People were making up groups, getting a commemorative coin made, and then selling them at a premium and keeping the profits. The result was a near 30-year moratorium on commemorative coins. In 1982, the program started up again but it was limited to a maximum of only 2 different groups per year. So while in 2007, for example, there were 6 different commemorative coins minted, they were only for celebrating the 400th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown or for the 50th anniversary of desegregation of Little Rock Central High School.

Coins in the Set

There are probably literally hundreds of different commemorative coins if you include both proof and business-strike examples along with all the metals (clad, silver, gold, and the unique bimetallic gold/platinum Library of Congress coin from 2000). They also commemorate a huge range of things, from people to discoverties to parks to monuments.

My Collecting Goal

I collect what I like here. As I said, there are so many different ones, some of which cover things that I really don't want to commemorate (such as the first example above with the Boy Scouts). I also didn't really start to "get into them" until around 2003-2004, so I'm missing many of the earlier examples. I may go back one day and purchase them, but that is not at the top of my collecting goals at the moment.

1987 Constitution Silver Proof Commemorative Coin

2000 Library of Congress Silver Proof Commemorative Coin

2003 Wright Brother's First Flight Clad Proof Commemorative Coin2003 Wright Brother's First Flight Silver Proof Commemorative Coin

2004 Thomas Edison's Light Bulb Silver Proof Commemorative Coin

2006 San Fransisco Mint Silver Proof Commemorative Coin2006 San Fransisco Mint Gold Proof Commemorative Coin

2008 Bald Eagle Clad Proof Commemorative Coin2008 Bald Eagle SilverProof Commemorative Coin2008 Bald Eagle Gold Proof Commemorative Coin

2009 Abraham Lincoln Silver Uncirculated Commemorative Coin2009 Abraham Lincoln Silver Proof Commemorative Coin2009 Louis Braille Silver Proof Commemorative Coin

Checklist (May Be Created Later ... It's Long!)