Barber Half Dollars 1892-1915 Coin Guide
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Barber Half Dollars 1892-1915
Telephone service began between New York and Chicago. Also in Chicago,
30-year-old soap salesman William Wrigley started selling chewing gum
instead. The Coca-Cola Company was organized in Atlanta, and the first
pneumatic tire was invented.
The year was 1892, and new beginnings seemed to be the order of the
day. That was the case in United States coinage, as well. Three new silver
coins entered circulation that year. Sometimes identified as the Liberty
Head half dollar, quarter and dime, they're more often referred to by the
name of their designer: U.S. Mint chief sculptor-engraver Charles E.
Barber.
The fractional silver coins were long overdue for a facelift. All had
carried the Seated Liberty portrait for more than half a century, and
while it's true that life was more leisurely back then, the pace of change
in this case was downright glacial. The Mint had had little incentive to
change the designs of these coins. Only one of the three, the Seated
Liberty dime, had been made in the previous decade in anything approaching
normal numbers. New half dollars and quarters were barely struck at all
during the 1880s, because the federal government had more than enough
older coins (some dating back to the late 1840s) stashed away in its
vaults to satisfy public demand.
The Mint was not oblivious to the need for new designs. In his annual
report for 1887, Mint Director James P. Kimball pointedly referred to the
"popular desire for an improvement of the coinage in respect to the
present designs." Not until 1890 did the inventories of older halves
and quarters finally decline to the point where normal production seemed
likely to resume, making the time more propitious for giving the silver
coins a brand-new look.
In 1890, Kimball secured legal underpinning for the concept of regular
design change. He prevailed upon Congress to pass legislation specifying
that from that point forward, coin designs could be changed
administratively after being in use for a minimum of 25 years. The half
dollar, quarter and dime were eligible at once though, in point of fact,
the Mint could have changed them any time it wanted under the standard
procedures it had followed in previous years.
Kimball was intrigued by the notion of holding a limited competition to
obtain new designs for the silver coinage. At his urging, in 1890 the
Treasury invited ten outstanding artists to submit proposed designs for
the half dollar, quarter and dime. Augustus Saint-Gaudens, the nation's
pre-eminent sculptor, headed the list of invitees.
There's little doubt that the contest would have borne impressive
fruit, but before it could begin the artists got together and drafted a
set of terms without which, they insisted, they wouldn't compete. Among
other things, they demanded that each entrant get $100 for each sketch
that he submitted and $500 for each completed model. The Treasury turned
them down and instead conducted a contest open to one and all. This
produced some 300 entries, but nothing deemed usable on the coinage.
Chief Engraver Barber proved to be the winner in the end. Frustrated by
the poor public entries, the Mint turned to Barber in 1891 to design the
coins, an assignment he had coveted all along. Barber came up with similar
obverse artwork for all three coins. It features a right-facing head of
Liberty with her hair bound up in a cap, a laurel wreath resting along her
hairline and a diadem bearing the incused inscription LIBERTY over her
brow. The designer's initial (B) is at the base of the neck. On the half
dollar and quarter, the motto IN GOD WE TRUST appears above this portrait,
the date below and thirteen stars alongside.
The two larger coins also share a common reverse design. It depicts a
heraldic eagle with a shield on its breast, an olive branch clutched in
its right talons and a bundle of arrows in its left talons. Inscriptions
on this side include UNITED STATES OF AMERICA along the top border, the
statement of value along the bottom and E PLURIBUS UNUM on a ribbon held
tightly in the eagle's beak. Thirteen stars are arrayed in the field above
the eagle.
All three Barber silver coins debuted in 1892, and all three had
steady, unspectacular careers in the nation's coinage lineup. In the case
of the Barber half dollar, annual production never exceeded six million
pieces at any given mint; the highpoint came in 1899, when the main mint
in Philadelphia made just a shade over 5.5 million. On the other hand,
yearly output never dropped below 100,000 coins at any one mint. The low
point occurred in 1914, when just 124,610 half dollars were struck at
Philadelphia. Besides the main mint, Barber halves also were produced at
the branch mints in New Orleans (O mintmark), San Francisco (S) and Denver
(D), with the mintmark placed below the eagle's tail. Scarce issues
include 1892-O, 1892-S, 1893-S, 1896-S, 1901-S, 1904-S and the last three
pieces from Philadelphia-1913, 1914 and 1915. However, there are no
extreme rarities.
Proofs were produced every year, with mintages ranging from a high of
1,245 in the first year of issue to a low of 380 in 1914, the
second-to-last year of the series. In 1916, the Barber coin was replaced
by a new half dollar, the Walking Liberty type, and no proof halves were
issued.
Barber half dollars were struck for a total of 24 years and in 73
different date-and-mint combinations. Collectors do assemble date-and-mint
sets, especially in circulated grades, but in mint condition this coin is
far more often collected by type. Meaningful numbers exist in mint state
levels up to MS-65, but above that the population is thin. When grading
this design, the points on the obverse that will first show wear are the
cheek and the hair below LIBERTY; on the reverse, check the eagle's head
and the tips of the tail and wings.
The total output of Barber half dollars for all 24 years was only about
136 million coins. That's less than half the number of Kennedy halves
struck at the Philadelphia Mint in 1964 alone, but then Barber halves were
bigger money. Back in 1900, a half dollar would have bought a man's shirt
or two pairs of suspenders. Money certainly went further in the "good
old days!"
SPECIFICATIONS:
Diameter: 30.6 millimeters Weight: 12.50 grams Composition: .900
silver, .100 copper Edge: Reeded Net Weight: .36169 ounce pure silver
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Breen, Walter, Walter Breen's Complete
Encyclopedia of U.S.and Colonial Coins, F.C.I. Press/Doubleday, New York,
1988. Lawrence, David, The Complete Guide to Barber Halves, DLRC
Press,Virginia Beach, VA, 1993. Taxay, Don, The U.S. Mint and Coinage,
Arco Publishing Co.,New York, 1966. Vermeule, Cornelius, Numismatic Art in
America, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA,
1971. Yeoman, R.S., A Guide Book of United States Coins, 47th Edition,
Western Publishing Co., Racine, WI, 1993.
Coin Information Provided Courtesy NGC.
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