My Favorite Coins: Oregon Trail Commem

My favorite coin for this column is a PCGS MS-67 1938-D Oregon Trail Memorial half dollar. Despite its distribution of 6,005, this is not a particularly expensive classic commemorative. Its current wholesale value in this grade is $510 (Coin Dealer Newsletter, Greysheet), and its PCGS value is $800. I paid $475 for my coin in 2019.

The 1938-D Oregon commemorative is not excessively expensive because it’s part of a multi-year issue. Oregon Trail commemoratives were minted in 1926, 1928, 1933, 1934, and 1936-1939. This commemorative was struck at all three mints (P, D, S), and the 1933-D was the first commemorative produced at the Denver Mint.

According to Anthony Swiatek’s Encyclopedia of the Commemorative Coins of the United States, the reason for the issue was “To commemorate the heroism of those who traversed the Oregon Trail to the Far West and to rescue the various points along the Trail from oblivion.”

The date side of the Oregon Trail commemorative was considered the obverse by the Mint even though the other side of the coin looks to many people like it should be the obverse. In fact, the coin’s designers identified the date side as the reverse. The date side features a Conestoga wagon pulled by two oxen toward the setting sun. The wagon is guided by a figure holding a stick. Visible inside the wagon are two figures: an adult and a baby or a child. As Swiatek put it, it’s “... the first implied baby or child depicted on U.S. coinage.” Using a 16X loop, the figure looks like a child to me.

On the reverse, which the designers and most collectors consider the obverse, there’s the standing figure of a scantily clad male Native American. His right arm cradles a bow that extends from one coast of the United States to the other. The United States is shown as an outline map behind the Native American. The man’s left arm is extended with his palm outward, as though he’s trying to halt the westward progression of initially European invaders of his homeland. Swiatek mentioned “... a line of Conestoga wagons indicating the Oregon Trail,” which I did not see until I studied the coin with my 16X loop.

Laura Gardin Fraser, the wife of James Earle Fraser of Buffalo Nickel fame, designed the Indian side. In 1931, Laura Fraser had the winning entry in the contest for the design of what became the Washington Quarter, but John Flanagan bypassed her entry. Her Washington Quarter design was resurrected and appears in the circulating American Women Quarters. It was also used on the 1999 George Washington Death Bicentennial $5 gold piece.

Laura Gardin was born in Chicago and displayed an early aptitude for modeling figures from clay. In this, she was guided by her artistically inclined mother. After high school, Laura studied briefly at Columbia University in New York before transferring to the Art Students’ League of New York. She studied under James Earle Fraser, the artist she later married.

The two artists collaborated on just one project, the design of the Oregon Trail commemorative. In addition to the Buffalo nickel, James Earle Fraser is famous for “End of the Trail,” a sculpture depicting a despondent Native American astride an equally forlorn horse. This statue was meant to be cast in bronze, but the scarcity of materials caused by World War I prevented this, and it remained a plaster statue. Moved to a park in Visalia, Calif., the statue gradually deteriorated. Fortunately, it was obtained in 1968 by the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum and restored. A bronze casting is on display at Mooney Grove Park.

In addition to her work on the Washington Quarter and the Oregon Trail commemorative, Laura Gardin is famous for her design of the 1921 Alabama Centennial Half Dollar, the 1922 Grant Memorial commemorative, and the 1925 Fort Vancouver Centennial Half Dollar. She also designed several medals “... including the Lindbergh, George C. Marshall, and Benjamin Franklin Congressional Medals of the National Geographic Society, the American Bar Association, the National Sculpture Society, and many others.”

Speaking personally, I’ve always thought that the Oregon Trail half dollar has the best design of any of the classic commemoratives, and I find it reinforcing that the front cover of David Bowers’ Commemorative Coins of the United States: A Complete Encyclopedia bears an enlarged image of Laura Fraser’s reverse/obverse design.

In addition, as I write this, I just received the latest edition of the PCGS Market Report. On page 27, the magazine’s editor-in-chief, Joshua McMorrow-Hernandez, has a collector spotlight on Hugh J. Hillaker, who has assembled a high-ranking complete set of classic commemoratives. “As for his favorite coins? ‘One of my favorites’ is one that [mentor] Bonnie Sabel helped me with many years ago. It is the 1938-D Oregon Half Dollar.”

It won’t come as a surprise that the coin pictured on the page is the reverse/obverse of the Oregon Trail half dollar. With toning around the rim, PCGS has assigned a grade of MS-68+ to the piece. Personally, I like my example of the coin better than Hillaker’s, as I’ve expressed my feelings about toning on coins in many previous articles. To paraphrase chemist and numismatist Weimar White, toning on a silver coin is like rust on iron. This position is not universally accepted, of course.

My apologies in advance to readers who might suffer from triskaidekaphobia (extreme fear of the number 13). Reviewing the biographies of James Earle and Laura Gardin Fraser, I found that James Earle was 13 years older than his wife and died 13 years before she did. Laura Gardin died on August 13, 1966.

I hope you can see why I love the Oregon Trail commemorative. If there’s one classic commemorative you would like to have, you can’t go wrong with the Frasers’ creation.