Peace Dollars (1921–1935)

De Francisci Was the Youngest Competitor and the Least Experienced, and He Won

By late 1921 numismatists who had campaigned since 1918 for a coin commemorating the armistice had persuaded the Treasury Department to act. Rather than producing a half dollar as originally proposed, officials decided to redesign the silver dollar. The Commission of Fine Arts opened a three-week design competition in November 1921, inviting eight prominent sculptors. The winning entry came from Anthony de Francisci, 34, an Italian-born sculptor whose only prior coin design was the 1920 Maine Centennial half dollar, which he modeled from sketches by Maine artist Harry Cochrane. He was the youngest competitor and among the least experienced with numismatic work, but the Commission found his Liberty portrait more modern in treatment and more distinctly human than the other entries. He took home the $1,500 first prize and the commission to execute the design.¹

The model for Liberty was de Francisci's wife, Teresa Cafarelli de Francisci, an Italian immigrant who had arrived in the United States as a child. She later wrote that she remembered being fascinated by the Statue of Liberty as her family's ship approached the harbor; she had struck a pose imitating it as a small child and been disappointed when another girl was chosen to play Liberty in a school play. When her husband asked her to pose for the new silver dollar, she described the experience as the realization of that childhood dream. De Francisci himself described the portrait as a composite rather than a literal likeness, a face that in his words "typifies something of America," but the correspondence between his wife's face and the Liberty on the coin was reported widely in the contemporary press and has never been seriously disputed. The radiate crown on Liberty's head, with its rays of sunlight, recalls the Statue of Liberty's spiked diadem; LIBERTY arcs above, IN GOD WE TRUST and the date appear below.²

The original reverse design carried a broken sword beneath the eagle, symbolizing disarmament in the spirit of the Biblical passage about beating swords into plowshares. After press critics objected that the image conveyed defeat rather than peace, Treasury officials ordered the sword removed, and on December 23, 1921, Mint Chief Engraver George T. Morgan cut it from the master hub at Philadelphia with de Francisci present to approve the work. The eagle now rests on a mountain crag above an olive branch, with PEACE inscribed below the eagle's perch and the rising sun sending rays from the right edge of the design. E PLURIBUS UNUM and UNITED STATES OF AMERICA surround; ONE DOLLAR appears below. The first Peace dollars were struck on December 28, 1921.³

The 1921 Was Struck in High Relief and Was Immediately Declared Impractical

The 1921 Peace dollar was struck entirely in high relief, producing a sculptural depth in the portrait of Liberty and the reverse eagle that distinguishes the date from every subsequent issue in the series. The Mint reported 1,006,473 struck at Philadelphia. The high relief needed excessive striking pressure to bring up the design, and the dies broke quickly. The Mint ordered the relief lowered, and production in 1922 shifted to the flatter profile used through 1935. Some high-relief 1922 coins had already been produced before the change; most were melted, though a small number of high-relief 1922 Proofs survived. The 1921 remains the designated representative of the high-relief design for collectors assembling a type set and is the one Peace dollar date that is distinctive enough to merit separate consideration from the rest of the series.⁴

Production Ran Through 1928, Stopped for Five Years, and Briefly Resumed

Peace dollars were struck continuously from 1921 through 1928 at Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Denver, with the combined output meeting the silver certificate backing requirements established by the Pittman Act. When those requirements were satisfied in 1928, production ended. The Depression years of 1929 through 1933 saw no silver dollars struck at any mint. The series resumed in 1934 and 1935 after the Thomas Amendment of May 1933 and a December 1933 presidential proclamation committed the Treasury to taking silver at above-market prices, a policy the Silver Purchase Act of 1934 extended; the resulting bullion was coined into Peace dollars to back a new wave of silver certificates. Over seven million coins were produced across 1934 and 1935; all three mints participated in 1934, but in 1935 only Philadelphia and San Francisco struck coins, so there is no 1935-D. Plans for 1936 issues progressed to the stage of working dies being prepared, but with no commercial demand for the denomination, none were struck. In January 1937 the master dies were ordered destroyed, ending the Peace dollar series in a single administrative decision with no public announcement.⁵

The 1928 Is the Key Date; the San Francisco Issues Are the Condition Rarities

The 1928 Philadelphia issue, with a mintage of 360,649 coins, is the lowest-production regular-issue Peace dollar and commands a premium in all grades from circulated through Gem (Mint State 65 or finer). The limited mintage followed from the Pittman Act, as the 1928 coinage used up the last of the bullion the act required and the Treasury's obligations were met by the end of the year. Most Mint State 1928 dollars grade Mint State 63 or 64 and Gems can be found, but PCGS had graded only two at Mint State 66 Plus as of May 2024. At Legend Rare Coin Auctions on April 27, 2023, lot 373, a 1928 graded PCGS Mint State 66 Plus CAC realized $129,250, a result that shows how steeply the price climbs at the top of the 1928 population report.⁶

Among the San Francisco issues, the 1924-S, 1925-S, 1927-S, 1928-S, and 1934-S are condition rarities in Gem Uncirculated grades. The 1934-S is the rarest Peace dollar in Mint State through Mint State 64, while the 1935-S is readily available and usually well struck through Mint State 65. A specialist assembling a gem-quality date-and-mint set will find the 1928-S and 1934-S more costly than the 1928, of which many coins were saved after the Mint announced its limited mintage.⁷

The 1964-D Was Struck in 1965, Ordered Destroyed, and Is Illegal to Own

In August 1964, facing a severe national coin shortage, Congress authorized production of 45 million silver dollars. The Mint had not struck a dollar since 1935 and had to select a design; Peace dollar working dies were prepared and production began at the Denver Mint on May 13, 1965. Between May 13 and May 24, 316,076 to 322,394 coins dated 1964 and bearing the D mintmark were struck, the two figures reflecting different documentary sources. The coins were announced publicly on May 15, prompting immediate offers from coin dealers at multiples of face value. The public response was outrage: using Mint resources during a shortage to produce coins that would be hoarded rather than circulated struck most observers as a misuse of government authority. Facing a congressional hearing on May 25, Mint Director Eva Adams announced on May 24 that the coins were trial strikes never intended for release. All were reportedly melted under close supervision, though the melt was verified by weight rather than individual coin count.⁸

The 1964-D Peace dollar was never monetized and thus remains government property; no example in private hands has legal status, and the government has asserted no statute of limitations on the right to reclaim genuine specimens. In 1970 two examples found in a Treasury vault were ordered destroyed. No confirmed examples have been authenticated in public or private hands since. PCGS offered a standing reward of $10,000 simply to examine a genuine specimen; no one has claimed it. The only surviving artifact is a single master obverse die held in the Philadelphia Mint vault; numismatic researcher Roger W. Burdette published the first photograph of it and interviewed the surviving Denver Mint employees about the 1965 production. The Mint's records document the large 1965 production in detail, yet no 1964-D can be legally collected.⁹

Building the Set

A type set requires two coins for the discriminating collector: one 1921 (high relief) and one standard-relief issue from any subsequent date. A single-coin type set built around a common date 1922 through 1927 Philadelphia issue is accessible at modest cost in most circulated and lower Uncirculated grades. A complete date-and-mint set of all 24 regular issues is achievable; the 1928 and 1934-S require patience and budget, and the San Francisco issues of the 1920s are hard to find in high grade. No Peace dollar is genuinely rare in circulated grades; for most dates the series' challenges are concentrated at Mint State 64 and above. The 1964-D is excluded from all collecting sets. The primary specialist reference is Burdette, Roger W., A Guide Book of Peace Dollars, 4th ed. (Whitman Publishing, 2020).¹⁰