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Vibrant sea green, rose, lilac, and violet iridescence vie for dominance on the obverse,
while the reverse exhibits a satiny display of deep, distinctive gold. A vibrantly toned
example of a popular issue that celebrates the equestrian statue of Lafayette, donated to
the French people from funds raised by American children who saved their pennies. This
famous issue, the first of our nation's commemorative issues within the $1 denomination,
was struck in December 1899 even though dated 1900.In the annals of commemorative coins
the 1900 Lafayette dollar is one of the most curious from a technical viewpoint. The
entire production of 50,000 pieces, plus some for assay, was accomplished in one day,
December 14, 1899, in effect pre-striking the issue. It must have been a hurry-up
procedure, for the normal process of making hubs, masters, and then working dies was not
followed. Instead, the working dies, several in number for both obverse and reverse, were
made by hand the old way, generally used prior to the late 1830s. This involved punching
the hub design in separately, and then adding the letters one by one using separate
punches. There is some small interest in collecting these by die varieties today, the
descriptions of which can be found in Dave Bowers' 1993 study, Commemorative Coins of the
United States: A Complete Encyclopedia, as well as in certain issues of The Commemorative
Trail and elsewhere.
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