The United States struck its first gold commemoratives for a world's fair. Congress tied a $5,000,000 grant for the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, held at St. Louis in 1904, to an issue of 250,000 gold dollars, signed on June 28, 1902. The law did not say what the coins should show, and the promoter Farran Zerbe pressed the Mint to make two designs so that buyers would want both. The coins came out dated 1903, one with Thomas Jefferson, who made the Purchase, and one with the late President McKinley.
Every issue that followed worked the same way. Congress named a sponsor, the sponsor paid the Mint face value for its coins and resold them at a higher price to raise money: for the Portland Lewis and Clark fair in 1904 and 1905, the San Francisco Panama-Pacific Exposition in 1915, a memorial at McKinley's Ohio birthplace in 1916 and 1917, the Grant centennial in 1922 and the Philadelphia Sesquicentennial Exposition in 1926. Zerbe handled sales of the Louisiana Purchase, Lewis and Clark and Panama-Pacific coins.
Sales fell short for nearly every issue. Unsold coins went back to the Mint for melting: about 215,000 of the 250,258 Louisiana Purchase dollars, 40,003 of the Lewis and Clark dollars, 10,023 McKinley dollars and 154,207 Sesquicentennial quarter eagles. The Grant dollars, limited by the Senate to 10,000, were the only issue to sell out.
The 1926 quarter eagle was the last of the series. Gold left circulation in 1933, and no gold commemorative was struck again until the 1984 Olympic eagle, covered on the modern ten-dollar gold page. The silver coins of the same years are on the classic silver commemoratives page.
