Striking the Wilson Dollar 100-Year Anniversary Medals

Jeff Shevlin · March 27, 2021

To commemorate the 100-year anniversary of the Manilla Mint, I made restrikes of the 1920 Wilson Dollar. The restrikes were made using the original obverse die that was engraved by George Morgan. Daniel Carr of the Moonlight Mint made a reverse die that replicated the original Morgan reverse die but changed the date from 1920 to 2020 and changed the legend to state “To Commemorate the Anniversary of the Mint”, the restrikes state “anniversary” instead of “opening”.

Since 2014 I have been issuing one or two sets of commemorative medals every year. There is an appendix in my book “So-Called Dollars from the Pacific Coast Expositions” that catalogs the previous medals I struck, listing the mintages for each composition.

I made several trips to the Moonlight Mint to strike the medals as the demand exceeded my expectations. In total approximately 1,100 medals were sold. The planchets were not a standard size, so Dan had to make custom planchets. That meant, using the gold for example, that Dan had to melt the .999 fine gold bars and rounds and pour them into a bar. The bar needed to be rolled numerous times to get the proper thickness, the planchets were punched out, annealed, cleaned wire brushed, rims upset, struck, edge numbered, etc. It is quite a process just to get ready to strike the medals.

The medals were struck in gold, 50 grams of .999+ fine gold and are edge marked. The silver medals are one ounce .999 fine silver and are edge marked. They were also struck in copper, brass, nickel and aluminum. Custom Lucite Holder with six holes, three holes and one hole were made to house the medals. I created a special website www.WilsonDollar.com to sell the medals.

Several good friends were able to join Cecilia and me at Dan’s mint for the striking. It was quite an event. John and Mary were there for the first striking and Jim was able to join us for a latter striking.


The Wilson Dollar 100-Year final mintages are:
Gold – 22
Silver – 202
Silver Select Gold-Plated – 140
Copper – 180
Brass – 193
Nickel – 184
Aluminum – 168
White Metal – 7

In addition, the original 1920 Wilson Dollar die and the reverse die were used to strike Fellowship Gathering Medals. The So-Called Dollar Fellowship Educational Symposium is an event I host once or twice a year. One is an educational event, the other is a social event. The Fellowship Gathering final mintages are:
Obverse die / Reverse die
Silver 27 / 27
Silver Select Gold-Plated 12 / 12
Copper 30 / 30
Brass 44 / 30
White Metal 30 / 30
Aluminum 30 / 30
Nickel 7

Steve Bieda authored a well-researched article on the Wilson Dollar and the 100-Year Anniversary Restrikes, his article was published in the FUN Journal spring 2021 edition and is titled “The 1920 Wilson Dollar – The Serendipitous Discovery of its Original Obverse Die & the Medal’s 2020 Reincarnation”.

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So-Called Dollars