The Coin a Sculptor Made to Pay for His Own Statue

Trygve Rovelstad wanted to build a statue. Born in Elgin, Illinois, in 1903 to Norwegian immigrant parents, he had trained under some of the great names of Midwestern sculpture and come home with one ambition: a bronze memorial to the pioneer families who settled the Fox River valley. He laid its foundation in 1934. He had no money to cast it.

So he reached for the same trick that funded dozens of monuments in the 1930s — a commemorative coin. In that era Congress could authorize a special half dollar, hand the whole batch to a sponsoring group at face value (50 cents), and let that group sell them to collectors at a premium. The markup was the fundraiser. Elgin's 100th birthday — the town was founded in 1835 — gave the campaign its hook.

It worked, on paper. President Franklin Roosevelt signed the authorizing act on June 16, 1936, for 25,000 coins. But the money never matched the dream. Rovelstad cleared only a few thousand dollars — enough to keep the project alive, not enough to finish it. The promised government funding never arrived. His Pioneer Memorial stood unfinished for the rest of his life. He died in 1990; the bronze was finally cast and dedicated in Elgin in 2001, more than six decades after the coin that was supposed to pay for it.

Rovelstad designed both faces himself — the only U.S. coin he ever made, and a sculptor's coin through and through.

The obverse — the heads side — is a bearded pioneer in profile, rugged and weather-cut, with the dates "1673 ★ 1936." The earlier date is not Elgin's founding; it marks 1673, when the French explorers Jolliet and Marquette first reached Illinois. Rovelstad was telling a longer story than one town's centennial.

The reverse is the statue itself, in miniature. It shows the group Rovelstad meant to cast in bronze: pioneers standing together, a mother holding a baby in her arms, a rifle and an axe among them. In effect the coin is a tiny preview of a monument the public would not see at full size until 2001. Both sides carry the deep, modeled relief — the height the design rises off the field — that gives the Elgin its sculptural look, and they helped it strike up sharp and frosty at the Philadelphia Mint.

The Elgin is a one-year, one-mint coin: every example is a 1936 from Philadelphia with no mint mark. With only about 20,015 surviving, it is a moderately scarce classic commemorative — not a rarity in collectible grades, but never plentiful either.

What makes it interesting to collectors is condition. The coin almost always came nicely made — typically struck with strong, frosty luster — so problem-free mint-state pieces (a "mint state" coin shows no wear from circulation) are findable. The Elgin is also famous for toning: decades in original holders gave many coins natural red-and-green patina, and an attractive example sells for a real premium over a dipped, washed-out one.

The thin air is at the very top. A run-of-the-mill gem is affordable; a coin certified at the highest grades is not. To put numbers on it: a PCGS MS68+ with a CAC sticker brought $49,937.50 at auction in January 2014, and another MS68 CAC sold for $41,512.50 in June 2022. The same grade without the same eye appeal can sell for a small fraction of that — which tells you exactly what the market is paying for. With this issue, you are buying the surface, not just the date.