$1 Gold Commemoratives | Buy Early Gold Commems

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$1 Gold Commemorative coins | Early Gold Commems

At the turn of the twentieth century, the United States issued several $1 Gold Commemorative Coins to celebrate the nation’s greatest accomplishments. A number of the earliest coins were released during the popular world’s fair expositions, and most were met by lukewarm reception from the public, who purchased relatively few. Innumerable Commemoratives were mishandled, destroyed or sent to the melting pot in the years subsequent to their release, increasing their scarcity today. Each 1903-1922 Gold Commemorative Coin shares the composition of .04837 Ounces of .900 Pure Gold.

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Prime examples of the $1 Gold Commemorative Coins are the 1903 Jefferson and McKinley designs. At the time, Congress passed legislation to fund the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St.Louis, Missouri, along with the production of 250,000 gold coins to celebrate the centennial of the Louisiana Purchase. Though the exposition was held in 1904, both designs carried the date 1903, and the first featured the likeness of Thomas Jefferson, President at the time of the original land acquisition. The second, less likely design, was that of President William McKinley who was assassinated while visiting the Pan-American Exposition in New York three years prior.

McKinley signed the bill which approved the Louisiana Purchase Exposition and its coins just six short months before he died--hence the desire to pay him tribute. Despite the distribution efforts of numismatic entrepreneur Farran Zerbe (involved in the distribution of several of the $1 Commemoratives), a large number of the coins were later melted. Coincidentally, President McKinley would be memorialized twelve years later with the McKinley Memorial Gold Dollars of 1916 and 1917..

In 1905, Portland, Oregon hosted the Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition, commemorating the United States’ first transcontinental expedition to the Pacific Coast. After approving the production of 250,000 $1 Gold Commemorative Coins, the U.S. government produced its first and only two-headed coin, the obverse bearing a portrait of Meriwether Lewis, the reverse depicting William Clark--both leaders of the great Corps of Discovery Expedition. Originally sold for $2 per coin, these One Dollar Gold Coins, snubbed by contemporary collectors, have come to be the rarest coin in the Commemoratives Series..

Above are just a few examples of the impressive--and rare--early Commemorative coins available at Provident Metals. Please take a moment to browse our convenient website for more information and a complete list of $1 Gold Commemorative Coins available to investors.