Despite growing opposition to commemorative coins, legislation for the Columbia half dollars passed Congress unopposed in 1936.

[5] Following the end of the American Revolutionary War, the South Carolina Legislature was concerned that the state capital, Charleston, was too vulnerable to attack by sea and too far from the agricultural lands being developed.

Work began on a new building in 1856 but was interrupted by the American Civil War; the Old State House was burned following its capture by Union troops in 1865.

[11] Legislation to authorize a Columbia half dollar was introduced in the House of Representatives on June 17, 1935, by South Carolina's Hampton P. Fulmer.

[12][13] That committee reported back through Andrew Somers of New York on February 17, 1936, recommending passage of the bill with amendments.

Snell stated that he had wanted such a coin at the request of some people from his part of the country, but had learned it was against Treasury Department policy.

Thomas J. O'Brien of Illinois demanded the regular order, and the bill was amended and passed without opposition or further debate.

[19] His completed plaster models of the coin were sent to the Commission of Fine Arts (CFA) by the Director of the United States Mint, Nellie Tayloe Ross, on May 25, 1936.

[18] CFA chair, Charles Moore agreed with Ross's assessment in a letter dated June 1, 1936, and suggested the South Carolina commission hire an experienced medalist.

The revised models were recommended by the CFA on July 22, and subsequently were approved by Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau.

Arrows are tied to its base in a saltire pattern by a broad ribbon, signifying the tree's military connotation.

[28] Numismatic author Q. David Bowers stated, "The half dollar was attractive in its simplicity, and few numismatists—who certainly are inclined to voice opinions if they don't like things—felt moved to be critical.

"[30] He deemed the obverse "badly proportioned" and the reverse "boring; it recalls the nineteenth-century primitivism of a Spanish colonial or newly-independent South American country's large denominations in silver, but lacks the spontaneity of those rugged pieces of eight.

[6] On May 30, Senator Byrnes wrote to Director Ross, asking on behalf of Hammond that the coins be struck at all three of the mints then open.

[32] A total of 9,007 were struck at Philadelphia, 8,009 at Denver and 8,007 at San Francisco, with the excess over the even thousands held for examination and testing at the 1937 meeting of the annual Assay Commission.

[5] David Bullowa, in his 1938 monograph on commemoratives, wrote, "The distribution was made by the commission on a very fair basis, and few persons were able to secure these coins in quantity.

It made every endeavor to treat the collector fairly and to prevent the speculator from manipulating the prices of the sets in the open market, as had been done with many previous commemorative issues.

[37] The deluxe edition of R. S. Yeoman's A Guide Book of United States Coins, published in 2020, lists the set for between $540 and $900, depending on condition, with individual pieces valued at a third of that.