Congress had inserted safeguards in the legislation to curb excessive profits, and though some of the coins were minted in 1937, there was no change of date, meaning collectors would have to purchase only one piece to have a complete set.

After the American Revolutionary War, the area known as the Western Reserve, now in eastern Ohio, was the subject of dispute among the states, several of which claimed it as part of their territory.

Although political rights to the area were given up to the federal government, Connecticut kept land ownership and used part of its holdings to resettle those whose homes had been destroyed by the British during the war.

[4] At the time, commemoratives were not sold by the government — Congress, in authorizing legislation, designated an organization that had the exclusive right to purchase the coins at face value and vend them to the public at a premium.

[10] A bill for a Cleveland Centennial half dollar was introduced into the United States Senate by Ohio's Robert J. Bulkley on March 23, 1936, and it was referred to the Committee on Banking and Currency.

[12] The committee heard of the Oregon Trail Memorial half dollar, authorized in 1926 and still being struck in 1936, and of commemorative coins created with intentionally low mintages as a way of inflating profits.

[13] When legislation for a Cleveland half dollar came before his committee, Adams struck out the entire bill, after the enacting clause, and substituted a new version.

The original legislation had given the Cleveland Centennial Commemorative Coin Committee, controlled by Melish, discretion to have the new piece struck at any of the mints, at any time even over the course of years, in any amount up to the authorized limit of 50,000.

[10] On May 1, even before Roosevelt signed the legislation, the Director of the Mint, Nellie Tayloe Ross, sent sketches that had been submitted by Putnam to the Commission of Fine Arts.

That commission had been charged by President Warren G. Harding's 1921 executive order with rendering advisory opinions on the designs of public artworks, including coins.

[20] On May 2, commission chairman Charles Moore responded to Ross, giving preliminary approval, and stating that one of its members would work with Putnam as she prepared the necessary plaster models.

Putnam had placed, on the map on the reverse, sketches of buildings to represent the sites of Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Buffalo, and Toronto.

The reverse shows a map of the Great Lakes region with nine stars to represent its cities, listed from west to east: Duluth, Milwaukee, Chicago, Toledo, Detroit, Cleveland, Toronto, Buffalo, and Rochester.

[23] Anthony Swiatek and Walter Breen, in their book on commemoratives, stated that "we have not found documentation, but we suspect that the compass was intended to show Cleveland as the center of industry within a radius of approximately 900 miles", thus encompassing, the authors suggested, not only the Great Lakes cities represented, but New York, Boston, Washington, and St.

[25] The other inscriptions required by law appear in the upper right of the reverse, and 1836 GREAT LAKES EXPOSITION 1936 CLEVELAND CENTENNIAL surround the map.

[26] Numismatist David Bullowa, in his early work on commemoratives, stated, "the design of this issue is pleasing ... the obverse and reverse alike are sharply defined, interesting and not crowded".

[10] Art historian Cornelius Vermeule, in his work on U.S. coins and medals, wrote that the half dollar "manages to combine most of the faults found in the better designs of the 1920s and 1930s.

Editor Lee Hewitt commented in the Numismatic Scrapbook, "it seems strange that Mr. Melish, living in Cincinnati, should be the distributor of the Cleveland issue.

[24] Melish sent form letters to collectors warning that his committee had received offers from speculators to buy the entire issue and suggesting they act quickly to get their orders in.