Lusterrules So-Called Dollars

Owner Comments:

When the 1892-1893 World’s Columbian Exposition was being planned, its directors were looking for someone who could conceive of and build a new type of monument for the event that would exceed what the French had done with the Eiffel Tower at the 1889 Paris International Exposition. George Washington Gale Ferris Jr. was a civil engineer from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania who came up with the idea of a 264-foot-high rotating wheel with 36 cars, each able to hold 60 people. At first the Expo’s planners feared that there was no way that Ferris’s wheel could be safe; but when Ferris presented them with endorsements from several other highly respected engineers, they decided to allow Ferris to build his wheel. When the exposition opened, the new Ferris Wheel was a huge success. 38,000 people rode the wheel daily; and by the end of the expo, it had generated almost $750,000 in profit. This So-called Dollar is the fourth of four different medals that were struck for the exposition that depict the Ferris Wheel and are collectively known as Ferris Wheel Dollars. It is made of aluminum and has bright deep-proof-like surfaces. It is 1 of only 2 examples that NGC has graded MS-65 DPL. None have been graded higher, making it tied for the title of finest known. The overall rarity is R5 (76-200 known).