Apparently there was nothing worthwhile to commemorate on the Cincinnati half dollar. Ever innovative, Melish dreamed up the idea of placing the portrait of Stephen Foster on the obverse, although Stephen Foster had very little to do with the city. The reverse noted that Cincinnati was celebrating its 50th anniversary 1886-1936 as "a musical center of America," although to this day no one has ever come up with an explanation of what occurred musically in Cincinnati 50 years earlier in the year 1886!

Other commemorative half dollars had more validity in history, and few would question, for example, that the 1935 commemorative half dollar issued to celebrate the 300th anniversary of the state of Connecticut was worth issuing. Thoroughly confusing was the Delaware half dollar, ostensibly struck to celebrate the 300th anniversary of the landing of Swedes in that state, a coin authorized in 1936, bearing the date 1936 on the obverse, but actually struck in 1937, and on the reverse bearing the date 1938. You figure it out!

In 1936 when sets of Rhode Island commemorative halves were distributed through banks and agents, they were sold out in just six hours after being placed on sale, according to official news reports. However, anyone who missed the opportunity to buy sets at the original issue price could obtain some by paying a premium to - guess to whom? - some of the official distributors who just happened to set aside a few extras.

Some commemorative issues turned into a veritable annuity for their issuers, none more so than the Daniel Boone half dollars sold by C. Frank Dunn, whose office was in an upstairs room in the Hotel Phoenix in Lexington, Kentucky. Dunn distributed Daniel Boone half dollars in 1934, ostensibly to commemorate the bicentennial of the famous explorer's birth. Not satisfied to let it go at that, he decided to keep celebrating the situation, and was able to create not one coin, but a set of three coins from three different mints in 1935. As if that were not enough, still more varieties were made for the year 1935, bearing the small date "1934" on the reverse. Additional Boone sets were minted from 1936 through 1938. All of this poured thousands of dollars into Dunn's pockets, amid outcries from collectors who on one hand complained about the inequities of such profiteering, but on the other hand considered their holdings incomplete if they did not own, for example, a rare 1935-D Boone half dollar with small "1934" on the reverse, not available any longer from Dunn, for these had been "sold out" at an early date, but obtainable only on the open market for multiples of the original issue price.