Has There Been a Re-Strike of the Confederate Half Dollar?
The Confederate Half Dollar is a unique, historically significant, and elusive coin produced by the Confederate states during the Civil War. 500 coins were privately re-struck by JW Scott.
The Limited Mintage and Value of Confederate Half Dollars
AHM Peterson engraved the die for the Confederate Half Dollar. Peterson’s Die was paired with an 1861 Liberty Seated Union obverse. Both dies were polished to a proof finish and four coins were struck using a screw press.
Those are the only Confederate Half Dollars ever struck. They were presented to four people, including Dr. BF Taylor, Chief Coiner at the New Orleans Mint.
In 2017, one of these four sold at auction for $960,000.
The CSA Half Dollar Scott Restrikes
More than a decade antebellum, Dr. Taylor, who had not only a CSA Half Dollar but also the die engraved by Peterson, feared repercussions for colluding with the Confederacy. He nonetheless broke his story in 1879 in a New Orleans newspaper.
After the story was published, a coin dealer named Ebenezer Locke Mason contacted Dr. Taylor and persuaded him to sell the die and Confederate Half Dollar. Mason then sold the Confederate Half Dollar die to JW Scott, a stamp and coin dealer based in New York.
When Scott acquired the die, it was not in good working condition. It was rusted and had a chip in the lettering. With the help of another coin dealer, Scott was able to clean the rust from the die and strike 500 tokens. For the obverse, he created a die with a brief history of the coin.
After striking the tokens, Scott planed the reverse from 500 1861-O Half Dollars and struck them with his restored Confederate die. Since he placed the coins in a copper pan to strike them, the Liberty Seated design on the obverse was flattened.
The last PCGS listed auction sale of a Scott restrike sold for $10,500 in January 2023. Collecting Confederate banknotes and coinage is a popular way for coin collectors and numismatists to add tangible artifacts from the Civil War to their holding.
