The 2013 Perry’s Victory and International Peace America the Beautiful Silver Bullion Coin is the second strike of the US Mint’s America the Beautiful Silver Bullion Coin™ Program to be issued in 2013. It also has the distinction of being the seventeenth release of the 56-coin program which debuted in 2010 and runs through 2021.
Each of these coins in the series will be struck from five ounces of .999 fine silver to a diameter of three inches. As a bullion issue of the Mint, its weight and purity is guaranteed by the US Government and each coin will be edge inscribed with the weight and fineness.
This series is considered a companion to the America the Beautiful Quarters Program from the Mint and will feature the same imagery. As such, the obverse will show George Washington (the first President of the United States) just like is seen on the quarters.
As Perry’s Victory and International Peace Memorial in Ohio is the subject of this coin, an image symbolizing the memorial will be featured on the reverse. The final design for this coin should be unveiled by the Mint in early 2013 after the Treasury Secretary has made the selection, as dictated by the act which authorized the coins.
He will base his decision on input received from the Director of the Mint, the Secretary of the Interior, the Governor of Ohio, the Citizen’s Coinage Advisory Committee and the Commission of Fine Arts. The latter two groups should get their opportunity to review the design candidates for the Perry coin in early 2012.
There will be a total of 56 coins in this series which will be released at a rate of five per year. Each coin will feature a site of national interest. These could include national parks, national forests, national preserves, etc. One site is to be chosen from each state, the District of Columbia and U.S. territories — Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, the U.S. Virgin Islands and the Northern Mariana Islands.
The US Mint will sell these bullion strikes only in bulk to its network of authorized purchasers. These purchasers then in turn will resell them at a slight premium over the spot price of the silver in the coins to coin dealers and individuals.
As the second coin released in 2013, it will be preceded by a bullion strike honoring White Mountain National Forest in New Hampshire. Three coins will follow it that year honoring Great Basin National Park in Nevada, Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine in Maryland and Mount Rushmore National Memorial in South Dakota.
Perry’s Victory and International Peace Memorial in Ohio
In a seemingly, but intended, contradiction of philosophies, Perry’s Victory and International Peace Memorial in Ohio celebrates both an act of war as well as a lasting peace.
The act of war was a naval battle that occurred in the War of 1812 between the United States of America and the British Empire. Known as the Battle of Lake Erie, it is considered by most to be the greatest naval battle of that war, it was led on the America side by Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry and the British side by Robert Heriot Barclay. With superior numbers, a United States Navy fleet of nine vessels defeated and captured six vessels of Great Britain’s Royal Navy. This victory ensured the United States had control of Lake Erie for the remainder of the war.
But, the memorial also recognizes the two centuries of peace that has endured between the Untied States, Great Britain and Canada since that war.
On the grounds of the memorial is one of the tallest monuments in the United States, a massive 352 foot doric column. It was constructed by a multi-state commission from 1912-1915 and turned over to the federal government in 1919. In 1936, President Franklin D. Roosevelt created the Perry’s Victory and International Peace Memorial National Monument.
The area was renamed as a national memorial in 1972.