These included the Albany piece, wanted by city officials to mark the 250th anniversary of the 1686 grant of its municipal charter by Thomas Dongan, governor of colonial New York.

The authorizing bill passed through Congress without opposition, though amendments added protections for coin collectors against abuses seen in earlier commemorative issues.

Lathrop's designs have generally been praised: she placed a beaver on one side of the coin, modeled from life (one appears on Albany's city seal) and depicted the persons involved in the grant of the charter on the other.

[5] Legislation for a commemorative half dollar in honor of the 250th anniversary of the founding of Albany[a] was introduced into the House of Representatives on April 23, 1935, by Parker Corning of New York.

[8] The amendment increased the authorized mintage from 10,000 half dollars to 25,000, and required that a committee of at least three people appointed by Albany's mayor be empowered to order the coins from the Mint (the original bill permitted an individual to have that power).

[10] Only two weeks earlier, on March 11, a subcommittee of the Banking Committee led by Colorado's Alva B. Adams had examined abuses of commemorative coin issuers.

The law authorized the Albany committee to sell the half dollars at face value or at a premium, and required that the proceeds go to defray the cost of the anniversary celebrations.

[17][18] On July 2, 1936, Albany's mayor, John B. Thacher, wrote to Director of the Mint Nellie Tayloe Ross advising her that he had appointed the legislatively mandated three-member committee (the Albany Dongan Charter Coin Committee), led by William L. Gillespie, the president of the National Commercial Bank and Trust Company.

[17][19] On September 2, Lathrop went to the offices of the Commission of Fine Arts (CFA), bringing the completed plaster models for the coin and a letter from its sculptor-member, Lee Lawrie, with her.

[20] The CFA was, by a 1921 executive order by President Warren G. Harding, charged with rendering advisory opinions regarding public artworks, including coins.

Lathrop went to see Chief Engraver John R. Sinnock at the Philadelphia Mint, who said the word would still be visible, and stated that he thought the models would yield a "splendid coin".

Many of Albany's early settlers earned a living through the trade in beaver pelts, and the animal appears on the city's seal.

Two maple keys, containing the seeds, are used to divide the name of the issuing country from the coin's denomination: they, as well as the pine cones that fulfill a similar function on the reverse, were meant by the sculptor to symbolize the growth and fertility of the community.

[28] David Bullowa, in his 1938 work on commemoratives, wrote, "every symbol and device on this issue has significance as connected with the early Colonial history of New York.

"[30] Given the complexity of the reverse, he stated, "that the coin as a whole has considerable appeal can be counted as a credit to the good training and innate taste of the artist, who was able to work in all these allusions to local aspirations and a bygone event with modest, positive precision.

"[30] A total of 25,013 Albany half dollars were struck at the Philadelphia Mint during October 1936, including 13 pieces set aside to be available for inspection and testing at the 1937 meeting of the annual Assay Commission.

[35] The deluxe edition of R. S. Yeoman's A Guide Book of United States Coins, published in 2018, lists the piece for between $220 and $425, depending on condition.

Even scarcer are boxes designed to hold single coins and inscribed with "The National Commercial Bank and Trust Company of Albany".