The United States Sesquicentennial coin issue consisted of a commemorative half dollar and quarter eagle (gold $2.50 piece) struck in 1926 at the Philadelphia Mint for the 150th anniversary of American independence.
Both the quarter eagle, designed by Sinnock, and the half dollar were struck in the maximum number authorized, but many were returned to the Mint for melting when they failed to sell.
In the Act of March 3, 1925, Congress both chartered the Commission and allowed one million half dollars and 200,000 quarter eagles to be struck in commemoration of the Sesquicentennial of American Independence.
[7] The Commission also hoped to have commemoratives depicting the enlargement of the country through acquisitions such as the Louisiana Purchase and the Annexation of Texas, but these were not included in the final version of the bill.
Having received no reply, he wrote again in late August, this time to Milton Medary, a member of the Fine Arts Commission, asking what progress had been made.
[14] The half dollar designs were approved by the Fine Arts Commission, on condition the sketches were converted into models by a competent sculptor, and Moore sent them on December 11 to Mint Director Robert J.
The resultant plaster models, made by Sinnock, were submitted to the Fine Arts Commission on March 13, 1926, and were undoubtedly endorsed, but the approval letter is lost.
Moore sent his commission's approval to Grant on March 26, with several recommendations, including that the motto E Pluribus Unum, present on the obverse in Sinnock's sketches, and the sun's rays on the reverse, be omitted.
Commenting on the half dollar obverse, he praised its technical aspects, showing the Mint had learned something from earlier attempts at coin redesign.
[25] For the quarter eagle obverse, with its figure of a robed Liberty standing on a globe, Vermeule suggested that Sinnock "revert[ed] in part to the allegorical iconography of the nineteenth century.
[13] Lewis, in a May 5 letter to Mint Director Grant, had indicated his (mistaken) understanding that a mark was placed on the first 1,000 coins struck to distinguish them and proposed that it be "K" for Kendrick; this was not done.
Most firms that exhibited lost money by their participation, as did the city, and according to Bowers, "in the annals of fairs and expositions in the United States, the Sesquicentennial event earns a low rating.
[32] Arlie R. Slabaugh wrote in his 1975 book on the same subject, "we have been called complacent about our independence and the American way of life in recent years—judging by the sale of these coins, it must have been much worse in 1926!
Mint and other publications gave credit for both coins' designs only to Sinnock until Don Taxay published his An Illustrated History of U.S. Commemorative Coinage in 1967, disclosing Lewis's involvement.
[12] Taxay referred to "the Mint's ... final, deliberate misattribution of the artist who designed the half dollar"[10] and wrote, "perhaps after these forty years, it is time for a new credit line".