1921 - 1928
1934 - 1935

The "war to end all wars" fell far short of that noble aspiration. What history now refers to as World War I, which ravaged Europe from 1914 to 1918, did stir worldwide yearning, however, for peace. One direct result of that fervent hope was the League of Nations. A second, less ambitious but equally sincere, was the Peace dollar. America shunned the League, but warmly embraced the coin.

Following the war, there was widespread sentiment for issuance of a coin that would celebrate and commemorate the restoration of peace. The American Numismatic Association played a key role in fostering this proposal. At the same time, the U. S. Mint found itself facing the need to start producing millions of silver dollars. That need grew out of the Pittman Act, a law enacted in 1918 at the urging of-and clearly benefiting-silver-mining interests. Under this measure, the government was empowered to melt as many as 350 million silver dollars, convert the silver into bullion and then either sell the metal or use it to produce subsidiary silver coinage. It also was required to strike replacement dollars for any and all that were melted.

Aside from helping silver producers, the law also aided Great Britain, a wartime ally at the time. During fiscal years 1918 and 1919, the U. S. government melted a total of more than 270 million silver dollars, and the great majority of these-259,121,554-ended up being sold in bullion form to the British, who needed the silver to deal with a monetary crisis in India. During that same period, the United States melted 11,111,168 silver dollars to obtain new raw material for subsidiary coins of its own.

The coins that were melted under the terms of the Pittman Act represented nearly half the entire production of standard silver dollars (as distinguished from Trade dollars) made by the U. S. Mint up to that date. Even so, the loss was no particular blow to the nation's commerce. Silver dollars were seeing only limited use, and remaining inventories were more than sufficient to serve commercial needs. Demand for the coins was so minimal, in fact, that none had been produced for more than a dozen years-since 1904.

Against this backdrop, the Mint had no reason to strike new silver dollars as replacements for the ones that had been melted-but the Pittman Act required it to do so. Accordingly, in 1921, after the price of silver had fallen from postwar highs, it started cranking out the long-suspended Morgan silver dollars once again. It did so, in fact, in record numbers: During that single year, the various mints produced a total of more than 86 million examples-easily the highest one-year figure in the series.

By interesting coincidence, Morgan dollar production resumed on the very same day-May 9, 1921-that legislation was introduced in Congress calling for the issuance of a new silver dollar marking the postwar peace. As described by its sponsors in a joint resolution, the new coin would bear "an appropriate design commemorative of the termination of the war between the Imperial German Government and the Government of the people of the United States."

Congress adjourned without taking action on the measure. It turned out, however, that congressional authorization wasn't really needed, since the Morgan dollar-having been produced for more than the legal minimum of 25 years-was subject to replacement without specific legislative approval.

To obtain designs for the coin, the federal Commission of Fine Arts arranged a competition involving a small group of the nation's finest medalists. The nine invitees included such famous artists as Victor D. Brenner, Adolph A. Weinman and Hermon A. MacNeil, all of whom had designed previous U. S. coins. But the winner turned out to be a young Italian immigrant named Anthony de Francisci, whose finely chiseled portrait of Liberty was modeled after his young wife Teresa. The reverse of the coin shows an eagle in repose atop a crag, peering toward the sun through a series of rays, with the word PEACE superimposed on the rock. No other U. S. coin produced for circulation has ever borne that motto.

Production of 1921 Peace dollars didn't get under way until the final week of December, and just over a million examples were produced. It soon became apparent that the coin's relief was too high, making it hard to strike and causing excessive die breakage. The Mint corrected the problem in 1922 by reducing the relief-but in the process, it somewhat lowered the coin's aesthetic appeal, as well.

By 1928, the Mint had produced enough Peace dollars to satisfy the Pittman Act's requirements. It thereupon halted production. The lid on silver dollars was clamped down even tighter with the onset of the Depression the following year. The design returned for a two-year curtain call in 1934, largely because more cartwheels were needed as backing for silver certificates. The 1934-S proved to be one of the key coins in the series, along with the 1921 and the 1928. The mintmark is below the word ONE on the reverse. A handful of matte proofs exist, but only for 1921 and 1922.

Silver dollars-of both designs-were largely ignored by collectors until the early 1960s, when silver certificate redemptions and the publicity surrounding the Treasury's sales of $1,000 bags of dollars to all comers created new interest in the large silver coins. Ironically, Peace dollars had been readily available at banks for decades, and following Treasury Department policy, were paid out before Morgan dollars were disbursed. But few collectors were interested in completing sets of these relatively expensive coins, finding it more practical to assemble collections of the smaller denominations: A silver dollar represented a considerable sum in the 1930s and '40s-enough to buy five dozen eggs or ten boxes of Wheaties. It wasn't until the very early 1960s, when the Treasury had almost emptied its vaults of Peace dollars, that the more sought after Morgans started to pour forth, fueling collector enthusiasm for both series in the process.

The entire run of Peace dollars consists of just 24 coins, none of them great rarities. Thus, many collectors strive for complete date-and-mint sets. Pristine, high-grade pieces are elusive, however; weak strikes were common, and the broad, open design made the coins vulnerable to wear and damage. Points to check for wear are Liberty's face, neck and the hair over her ear and above her forehead. On the reverse, wear will first show on the eagle's wing, leg and head.

The Peace dollar's early demise was ominously symbolic. Four years later, in 1939, World War II erupted in Europe. The design came very close to reappearing once more in 1964, when Congress authorized production of 45 million new silver dollars, apparently in an effort to serve the needs of Nevada gambling casinos. With the smaller silver coins rapidly disappearing from circulation, this was viewed as a gift to special interests. After the Denver Mint produced 316,076 Peace dollars (dated 1964) in May of 1965, the authorization was rescinded by order of President Johnson. Although all pieces were to be recalled and melted, rumors persist of several coins surviving.

SPECIFICATIONS:

Diameter: 38.1 millimeters
Weight: 26.73 grams
Composition: .900 silver, .100 copper Edge:
Reeded
Net Weight: .77344 ounce pure silver

Peace Dollar model had special claim to fame

Teresa de Francisci was a modest, unassuming woman. For many years, however, she had a distinction possessed by few other Americans: Her likeness appeared on one of the nation’s coins.

The coin was the Peace dollar, the last true silver dollar made for circulation by the United States Mint, and Mrs. de Francisci served as the model for the modern-looking Miss Liberty it portrayed.

She had the inside track for that job: Her husband, sculptor-medalist Anthony de Francisci, was the coin’s designer. They were still relative newlyweds at the time, having met and married shortly before – and both were new Americans, having come from their native Italy in the turn-of-the-century wave of immigration from southern Europe.

Teresa de Francisci

The future coin model – then Teresa Cafarelli – was only a small girl when she came with her mother in steerage class from Naples to New York. Legend has it that when she first saw the Statue of Liberty, she assumed a similar pose, foreshadowing her portrait on the dollar. She later cast doubt on this account, but admitted it made good reading.

“Considering how young I was, I don’t really think it could be true,” she said. “But somebody wrote that once, to make the story sound more interesting, I suppose – and you know how things like that come to be accepted as fact. It does make an interesting story.

“Later,” she added, “I was, of course, impressed by that statue. I think it’s a wonderful statue, and I think it means a great deal to almost everyone who has come over here from another country. And I’ve been very grateful to this country all my life.”

Teresa Cafarelli graduated in 1918 from Clinton High School in Clinton, Mass. – the first Italian-born girl to do so. She was introduced to de Francisci by her brother Michael, who had met him at art school in New York.

“That was Anthony’s Waterloo,” she said with a gentle laugh, adding quickly:

“I mean that in a kidding way. We really had a very good marriage. I had a lot of understanding of his work, and we always had a lot of communication.”

The de Franciscis were living in New York when the coin opportunity came along in 1921.

“We were living in a fourth-floor walk-up in Manhattan, on West 60th Street,” she told me in an interview many years later, “and Anthony had his studio there, as well. And that's where I posed for the coin.

“What he wanted,” she said, “was a portrait of Liberty – an idealized portrait of what it represented to him. I posed for it; whatever he got from life, he got from me. But he didn’t set out to make a portrait of me, and I wouldn’t really say that’s what it was.”

Perhaps not, but there is a striking resemblance between the Peace dollar’s fresh-faced portrait of Miss Liberty and photographs of Teresa de Francisci taken at about the same time. Her hair, then dark brown, turned silver white with age and her once-smooth brow grew creased, but even years later she still had the classic profile of the youthful coinage model.

Anthony de Francisci got the coin commission by winning a limited competition. He was one of nine artists invited by the Treasury to participate.

“Anthony never expected he would win,” his widow confided more than half a century later. “He was so young at the time, and some of the finest men in the country were invited.”

The field was exceptionally strong, including such first-rate artists as Adolph A. Weinman, designer of the “Mercury” dime and Walking Liberty half dollar; Hermon A. MacNeil, creator of the Standing Liberty quarter; and Victor D. Brenner, designer of the Lincoln cent.

Anthony de Francisci wasn’t a rank beginner by any means. Just one year earlier, he had designed the 1920 commemorative half dollar marking the centennial of the state of Maine, a well-received accomplishment that probably led the Treasury to invite him. But he was only 34 – and despite his reputation as a talented young sculptor, he seemed to have little chance against such glittering superstars in the field of medallic art.

That’s certainly the way he viewed the odds.

“Anthony was so certain he would lose,” his widow said, “that he told his artist friends, ‘I’ll give you a silver dollar if I win.’ Then, when he did win, we ordered 50 pieces from the Mint – and he gave them all away to keep his promise. He never even kept one for himself.”

Today, those 50 pieces have more than merely sentimental value. The 1921 Peace dollar had a relatively low mintage of just over 1 million, and well-struck specimens in top condition can bring thousands of dollars.

The de Franciscis never even kept one for themselves.

“We were never collectors,” Mrs. de Francisci explained. “Anthony was content to do the creating and let others do the collecting.”

As winner of the contest, her husband did receive a prize of $1,500 – a very substantial sum in those days. Each losing artist got $100 for taking part.

Mrs. de Francisci recalled the competition as having been “very, very quick.” The participating artists didn’t receive formal invitations until Nov. 19, 1921, and they had just three weeks to submit their sketches. Then, when the sketches were approved, they had only four days more to complete their plaster models – since coin production was scheduled to start, amazingly enough, before the end of the year.

“They gave the artists very little time,” Mrs. de Francisci said. “But Anthony was quick and facile. In fact, he submitted two completely different designs for the reverse.”

The federal Commission of Fine Arts, which judged the entries, first chose a de Francisci design showing an eagle breaking a sword in its beak. Later, however, the panel reversed itself and chose instead his other design – the one that appeared on the coin – which shows a more passive eagle resting atop a crag and looking off into the horizon.

“It was considered unpatriotic to have an eagle breaking a sword – even on a Peace dollar,” Mrs. de Francisci related. Critics, it seems, considered this as a symbol of defeat.

The Peace dollar was issued annually from 1921 to 1928. It went to the sidelines after that before returning for two final years in 1934 and ’35. It was the last 90-percent-silver U.S. dollar coin.

Anthony de Francisci went on to create many important works, both large and small – but, while his output included numerous medals, he designed no further coins. One of his final medallic works was the official inaugural medal for the 1964 New York World’s Fair. He also served for nearly 50 years as an instructor of sculpture at Columbia University in New York. He died in 1964 at the age of 76.

Teresa de Francisci outlived her husband by three decades, dividing her later years between a New York apartment and a quiet retreat in Rockport, Mass. She was 94 when she died in 1994, survived by a daughter, Gilda, the couple’s only child.

In a sense, of course, she’s still alive and vibrant for collectors. Her image and her spirit are immortalized in silver on a graceful dollar coin.