Coin Reference Library
Gold Commemoratives

1915-S $1 Panama-Pacific

Mintage: 15,000
Designer: Charles Keck

This souvenir gold coin bears a head of a man wearing a cap often mistaken for a baseball player. This coin was intended to represent a laborer who helped build the Panama Canal. The reverse side of this gold piece has two dolphins, which were meant to symbolize the meeting of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. A mintmark of "S" is located between the "D" and "O" of "Dollar". The $1 Panama Pacific trial piece was struck in silver at the Philadelphia mint at some unnamed date in the spring of 1915, before the working dies went to San Francisco. There are also uniface impressions of both obverse and reverse dies, without "S" mintmarks, in white metal, bronze. Proofs are reported of the regular issue with "S" mintmark.

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