William Marks Simpson, a sculptor who created several commemorative coins of the era, designed the Roanoke Island issue.

In 1584, Sir Walter Raleigh was given letters patent by Queen Elizabeth I of England authorizing him to explore "remote heathen and barbarous lands".

The ships explored along the Atlantic coast and Roanoke Island, in what is today North Carolina, was chosen as a site for settlement because there were friendly Native Americans nearby.

Their fate remains unknown, although there has been much speculation that they perished on the island or at sea, or were assimilated into a nearby Native American tribe.

[5] Sparked by new issues with low mintages for which the demand was greater than the supply, the market for United States commemorative coins spiked in 1936.

Until 1954, the entire mintage of such issues was sold by the government at face value to a group authorized by Congress, who then tried to sell the coins at a profit to the public.

[10] A bill to authorize a Roanoke half dollar was introduced into the United States House of Representatives on May 20, 1936, by Lindsay C. Warren of North Carolina, a Democrat.

Bertrand H. Snell of New York, a Republican, stated that if the House had many more of these bills, he would make a speech in favor of each one of them (presumably to delay them), but as he had been overruled so many times on them, he would not object.

Robert F. Rich of Pennsylvania, a Republican, stated that this was the 35th coinage bill that the Democratic majority had brought forward, possibly as a way to inflate the currency, and that they should be careful not to do something they might regret.

[21] Simpson reworked his models, redistributing the text on the coin and giving Raleigh's bust on the obverse a truncation which numismatic author Don Taxay described as "more graceful".

[25] Art historian Cornelius Vermeule stated of the obverse, "Sir Walter Raleigh resembles the movie actor Errol Flynn, who was specializing in Elizabethan dramatics at the time Simpson was creating this coin.

While infants had appeared on U.S. coins before (for example, on the 1936 Elgin, Illinois, Centennial half dollar), they had been suggested, but not fully depicted as Virginia is.

IN GOD WE TRUST is on one side of Eleanor, below a ship, and the anniversary years as well as commemorative inscriptions marking the colonization of Roanoke and Virginia Dare's birth are on the reverse.

Nevertheless, "in praise of this coin, it is necessary to note its unusual flavor, differing somewhat from the usual iconography of founder and early settler commemorative half-dollars.

"[32] An initial quantity of 25,000 half dollars, plus 15 pieces reserved for inspection and testing by the Assay Commission, were struck in January 1937 at the Philadelphia Mint.

We have approximately 8000 of these half dollars available to order ... All proceeds from the sale of these coins will be used in defraying expenses incidental and appropriate to the commemorative festival.

[21] They were available in time for the August 1937 celebration of the anniversary on Roanoke Island, which featured a production of an outdoor drama, The Lost Colony, which has been produced on an annual basis there since then.

[31] The United States Post Office Department issued a postage stamp to commemorate the anniversary, with the design based on the coin's reverse.

[35] Purchasers of the coin by mail were invited to spend an additional $.55 to buy the booklet A History of the Roanoke Island Settlement.