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 had been a minor role in the 1920 Maine commemorative half dollar. He was the youngest competitor and among the least experienced with numismatic work, but his submission carried something the others did not: a modernity of treatment and a specific human presence in the Liberty portrait that the Commission found compelling. 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, an image of features that "typified 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. Government officials objected that the image conveyed defeat rather than peace, and without consulting de Francisci, Mint Chief Engraver George T. Morgan altered the reverse to remove the sword. 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. Approximately 1,006,473 were minted at Philadelphia. The high relief demanded multiple strikes to fill the die cavities properly and caused the finished coins to wear unevenly on the high points; the design also proved difficult to stack. 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 legislation behind the series. 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 under the Silver Purchase Act of 1934, which required the Treasury to purchase domestic silver at above-market prices; 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 at all three mints. 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 reflected genuinely reduced demand rather than legislative mandate: by 1928 the silver certificate requirements were nearly met, and production was wound down deliberately. In Mint State the 1928 is difficult in any grade above Mint State 63; in Mint State 66 Plus it approaches scarcity at the population level. 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 illustrates the steep premium the condition rarity commands at the top of the population report.⁶

Among the San Francisco issues, the 1924-S, 1927-S, 1928-S, 1934-S, and 1935-S are condition rarities in high circulated and Uncirculated grades. The 1934-S and 1935-S in particular are scarce in Mint State 65 and above; they were struck later in the series under reduced production pressure and with less attention to strike quality, and the coins that survive tend to show weak strikes on Liberty's hair and the eagle's feathers. A specialist assembling a gem-quality date-and-mint set will find the San Francisco issues of the 1930s more challenging than the 1928, which at least has the distinction of being recognized as a key date and therefore commanded collecting attention early.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, photographed and documented by numismatic researcher Roger W. Burdette, who also interviewed surviving Denver Mint employees about the 1965 production. The 1964-D thus occupies a unique position in the hobby: a fully documented large production that generated extensive records but no collectible coin.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, 1934-S, and 1935-S will require patience and budget, while the San Francisco issues of the 1920s will require patience for high-grade examples. No Peace dollar is genuinely rare in circulated grades; the series' challenges are concentrated at the Mint State 64 and above level. 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. (Atlanta: Whitman Publishing, 2020).¹⁰