A March 28 Stack’s Bowers session offered a treat for lovers of classic commemoratives: two 1938-S Oregon Trail Memorial half dollars, each graded MS-68 by PCGS. The long-running series began in 1926, was revived in 1933, and would continue until 1939.The 1938-S emission’s mintage was 6,006 pieces, and the coins would also be struck at the Philadelphia and Denver Mints that year.

PCGS has graded 23 of the San Francisco strikes at MS-68 and two in MS-68+ that are tied as the finest certified. One of the sale's MS-68 examples sold for $3,840, featuring dappled olive-gold toning, while another, with bolder jewel tones on the side PCGS calls the reverse (with the wagon), sold for $4,320. The designs, by Laura Gardin Fraser and her husband, James Earle Fraser, are considered among the most beautiful in the early commemorative series.

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