DECEMBER 28
1921•Peace Dollar
1998•Sacagawea Dollar Designs Forwarded for Final Approval
The First Peace Dollars Are Struck
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On December 28, 1921, the Philadelphia Mint began striking the first Peace dollars, introducing one of the most celebrated silver coins in American history. Designed by sculptor Anthony de Francisci as a symbol of peace after World War I, the new dollar arrived only days after its final design had been approved and dramatically altered. By the end of the year, the Mint had produced 1,006,473 high-relief 1921 Peace dollars.
The schedule was extraordinary. The design competition had concluded only earlier that month. A controversial broken sword had been removed from the reverse at the last moment. Working dies were hurried into production, and the Mint had only a handful of days remaining in 1921.
Yet on December 28 the presses began to run.
The result was a one-year high-relief silver dollar that remains one of the defining coins of twentieth-century American numismatics.
America Wanted a Coin for Peace
The Peace dollar grew from the aftermath of World War I.
The fighting in Europe had ended with the Armistice of November 11, 1918, but the formal political settlement involving the United States took longer. By 1921, the country was moving decisively into the postwar era.
Numismatists and public figures began advocating a new silver dollar commemorating peace.
Ironically, 1921 had already witnessed a massive revival of the Morgan dollar.
The classic George T. Morgan design had last been produced in 1904. It returned because the Pittman Act of 1918 had authorized the melting of hundreds of millions of silver dollars while requiring replacement coins to be struck from newly purchased domestic silver.
Philadelphia, Denver, and San Francisco produced Morgan dollars in enormous numbers during 1921.
They were familiar, practical coins—but they represented the nineteenth century.
By the end of the year, a completely different silver dollar was ready to replace them.
No Special Act Was Needed
Because the Morgan dollar design had been in use for more than twenty-five years, the Treasury could replace it under existing law without obtaining a new act of Congress specifically authorizing a Peace dollar design.
That legal flexibility allowed the project to move quickly.
The Commission of Fine Arts organized a competition among prominent sculptors.
The participating artists were asked to create a new silver dollar symbolizing peace.
Among them was a relatively young Italian-born American sculptor named Anthony de Francisci.
De Francisci had been born in Palermo, Sicily, in 1887 and immigrated to the United States as a child.
He studied sculpture and worked with important artists and medalists, including figures associated with the great American coinage renaissance of the early twentieth century.
The Peace dollar would become his most famous work.
For Liberty, de Francisci drew inspiration from his wife, Teresa Cafarelli de Francisci.
Teresa had also been born in Italy and came to the United States as a child.
She later recalled her fascination with the Statue of Liberty upon arriving in America.
The Peace dollar obverse depicts a youthful Liberty facing left.
A radiant crown extends from her hair, creating a striking modern image with echoes of the Statue of Liberty and the sculptural language of the American Renaissance.
It was unlike the older Morgan portrait it replaced.
De Francisci's reverse centered on an American bald eagle.
The bird rests on a mountaintop holding an olive branch while rays of the rising sun spread across the background.
Below the eagle appears the single word that gave the coin its identity:
PEACE.
The imagery was deliberate.
The eagle was not shown attacking an enemy or clutching arrows.
It looked toward a new day.
The olive branch reinforced the theme of peace after the devastation of the world war.
The Design Wins
De Francisci's models were selected in December 1921.
Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon approved the new Peace dollar, clearing the way for production.
But the reverse soon became the center of controversy.
The original approved reverse included a broken sword.
De Francisci intended it as a symbol of the end of war—the weapon had been broken because peace had prevailed.
Many members of the public interpreted it differently.
Critics argued that a broken sword represented surrender or humiliation.
For a nation that had emerged victorious from World War I, the symbolism was politically explosive.
Newspaper coverage amplified the controversy just as the Mint was preparing the coin for production.
Treasury officials decided that the broken sword would be removed.
The decision came at the last possible moment.
Chief Engraver George T. Morgan modified the hub so that production could proceed without restarting the entire design process.
On December 24, the Treasury publicly made clear that the controversial sword would not appear on the finished coin.
That Christmas Eve event is itself an important chapter in the Peace dollar's creation.
Four days later, the actual coins began coming off the presses.
Only a few days remained in 1921.
If the Mint wanted the inaugural Peace dollar to carry the date 1921, production had to begin immediately.
Working dies were prepared at remarkable speed.
On December 28, the Philadelphia Mint struck the first Peace dollars.
PCGS and American Numismatic Association research identify December 28 as the first production day, with working dies finally ready for the presses.
A new American silver-dollar series had begun.
The 1921 Peace dollar differs significantly from the lower-relief coins most collectors know from later dates.
De Francisci's design was rendered in bold, sculptural relief.
The fields appear more deeply concave and the portrait and eagle rise dramatically from the coin.
Beautiful—and Difficult
The high relief gave the coin extraordinary artistic presence.
It also caused serious manufacturing problems.
A single strike often failed to bring up all of the design's highest details.
Liberty's central hair and portions of the eagle could appear weak.
The Mint attempted to improve the strike by using greater pressure.
But greater pressure placed enormous stress on the dies.
According to PCGS research, high-relief Peace dollar dies could fail after roughly 25,000 strikes—far sooner than dies used for Morgan dollars.
A circulating coin had to be manufactured by the millions.
A design that destroyed dies rapidly was economically and operationally unacceptable.
The Mint therefore faced the same conflict that had plagued the Saint-Gaudens double eagle in 1907: sculptural beauty versus mass-production reality.
The comparison is especially appropriate.
Fourteen years earlier, the Mint had struggled to translate Augustus Saint-Gaudens' extraordinary high-relief $20 design into a practical circulating coin.
In 1921, the Peace dollar repeated the lesson in silver.
Because striking pressure and die condition varied during the hurried production run, surviving 1921 Peace dollars display substantial differences in sharpness.
Many show weakness at Liberty's hair above the ear and at the eagle's central feathers.
Strongly struck examples command special attention from collectors.
PCGS has noted an intriguing possibility.
Because the earliest dies were fresh and later striking pressures were reduced to preserve die life, exceptionally sharp 1921 Peace dollars may be disproportionately associated with the first production day.
That does not provide an individual coin with a guaranteed December 28 pedigree, but it gives strike quality unusual historical interest.
Once the presses began, the Philadelphia Mint moved quickly.
The entire official 1921 Peace dollar mintage reached 1,006,473 coins.
Every one of them was produced during the frantic closing days of December.
A Million Coins in Days
The figure becomes more remarkable when placed beside the development schedule.
The winning design had only recently been selected.
The reverse had undergone a controversial last-minute alteration.
Working dies were not ready until December 28.
Yet more than one million coins were completed before the calendar turned to 1922.
All 1921 Peace dollars were struck at the Philadelphia Mint.
They therefore carry no mint mark.
Denver and San Francisco would join Peace dollar production in subsequent years.
December 28 marks production—not circulation release.
The new dollars did not reach the public that same day.
PCGS records indicate that the first 1921 Peace dollars were released into circulation on January 3, 1922.
Coin history often involves several separate dates.
A design may be authorized on one date, approved on another, first struck later, and finally released to the public on still another.
For the Peace dollar, December 28 is important specifically because it marks the beginning of production.
The new coin attracted immediate interest.
Its youthful Liberty, dramatic rays, resting eagle, and explicit PEACE inscription looked radically different from the Morgan dollar.
The coin embodied the optimism—and unresolved tensions—of postwar America.
The Mint quickly concluded that the 1921 relief was unsuitable for sustained mass production.
Experiments continued into early 1922, but the practical solution was clear.
The design had to be lowered.
The familiar 1922 and later Peace dollars use substantially lower relief.
They could be produced more efficiently and with longer die life.
The compromise sacrificed some of the sculptural power of the original 1921 version.
That makes the 1921 Peace dollar special beyond its first-year status.
Its high-relief format effectively forms a distinct type within the series.
Collectors seeking a representative Peace dollar type often treat the 1921 separately from the lower-relief issues that followed.
A Key Date
With a mintage just over one million, the 1921 is far scarcer than many later Peace dollars.
More importantly, demand is unusually strong because collectors value it as the first year, the high-relief issue, and the coin closest to de Francisci's original artistic conception.
For 1921 Peace dollars, strike quality can matter enormously.
A numerically high-grade coin may still show weak central details.
A sharply struck example can be visually exceptional even among coins assigned similar grades.
The 1921 issue also includes extremely rare special strikings.
A tiny number of Matte or Satin Proof Peace dollars were produced using special preparation and finishes.
These are among the great specialist prizes of the series.
One detail frequently puzzles new collectors.
On the obverse, the motto appears as “IN GOD WE TRVST.”
The V-shaped U reflects a classical lettering style associated with the Greek-Roman revival.
It is intentional, not a misspelling.
After 1921, Peace dollar production expanded dramatically.
The series continued from 1922 through 1928, when the silver obligations that had driven dollar production were effectively fulfilled and demand had diminished.
The Peace dollar returned in 1934 and 1935 under new silver-purchase requirements.
After 1935, no regular Peace dollars were produced for nearly three decades.
In 1964, amid renewed political pressure for silver dollars, the Denver Mint struck 1964-dated Peace dollars.
The project was canceled and the coins were ordered destroyed.
No example is legally recognized as surviving in private hands.
The episode became one of American numismatics' enduring mysteries.
A century after the original coin, the United States Mint revived the Morgan and Peace dollar designs as modern collector issues.
The 2021 Peace dollar commemorated the centennial of the series introduced in December 1921.
The strong response to the centennial issues eventually led the Mint to continue modern Morgan and Peace dollars.
Proof and other collector formats have brought de Francisci's design to a new generation.
The Original Still Stands Apart
Modern issues can reproduce the imagery, but the 1921 coin carries something they cannot replicate.
It was produced at the historical moment the design was created to represent.
It emerged directly from the aftermath of World War I and the nation's desire to commemorate peace.
The Peace dollar stands at a boundary in American history.
The Morgan dollar evoked the expanding, industrializing United States of the late nineteenth century.
The Peace dollar belonged to a nation emerging from a world war as an international power.
Few years illustrate numismatic transition as dramatically as 1921.
For most of the year, the Mint produced tens of millions of Morgan dollars.
Then, in the final days of December, the old design gave way to the new.
The year ended with Liberty wearing a radiant crown and an eagle watching the dawn.
The most important inscription may be the simplest.
PEACE appears alone beneath the eagle.
It is not part of a long motto or legal legend.
It is the coin's central message.
On December 28, 1921, the first Peace dollars were struck at the Philadelphia Mint.
The event followed an extraordinarily compressed sequence of competition, design selection, Treasury approval, public controversy, removal of the broken sword, hub modification, and die preparation.
Then the Mint had to turn art into money.
It did so at remarkable speed.
By the end of December, 1,006,473 high-relief Peace dollars had been struck.
The high relief proved too demanding for efficient mass production, so the design was lowered for subsequent issues. That left the 1921 dollar as a distinctive one-year expression of Anthony de Francisci's original concept.
More than a century later, collectors still prize the coin for its beauty, its challenging strike, its low first-year mintage, and the historical moment it represents.
December 28 was the day that idea finally became a coin.
ALSO ON THIS DAY
1998 — Sacagawea Dollar Designs Forwarded for Final Approval — Following unprecedented public participation in a circulating-coin design process, finalist Sacagawea dollar designs were scheduled to be forwarded to Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin for final approval on December 28.