MY First Comem!
EastonCollection
Posts: 1,533 ✭✭✭✭✭
Back in the 70s, I completed my commen set and sold it then and haven't looked back. This week, I purchased my first commen as I wanted to feel young again. The holder and coin dates back to prior to the TPG. The coin is perfectly original with all the luster there. The coin must have a cool story to it. I felt that I must have it.
Enjoy - 
Easton Collection
14
Comments
Very cool overall with nice added dimension in the presentation
Latin American Collection
Nice white coin and very interesting holder...had Swiatek been able to take that a step further and seal the edges he'd be living in an ocean-view home in Malibu today
Commems and Early Type
Besides the holder the coin is so undergraded. I feel its a 67 and maybe 68! It has no marks and 100% all there!
Awesome coin and presentation.
Very nice
POST NUBILA PHOEBUS / AFTER CLOUDS, SUN
Love for Music / Collector of Dreck
The Antietam was one of my first commemorative coins. Back then (late 1980s) I was looking to get all of the Civil War related commemorative half dollars, then the collection branched out from there.
I think that the design is one of the best in the series. It’s hard to get landscape designs to look like anything on a coin. It usually works better on a medal, but designer William Marks Simpson did an excellent job.
Here is a photo of Burnside’s Bridge, which appears on the reverse. Simpson did a mirror image of the actual scene. The tree that is most prominent in design was alive and growing during the battle.
Great looking coin and holder. I love the penmanship!
@EastonCollection
Very nice set to start this youthful hobby again. Have fun.
@BillJones
Thank you for finding the picture; the depiction is perfect.
BIll- your post made my day. Thank you for your post.
As an added bonus, here's Burnside on a Civil War token, whose whiskers were the source of the term "sideburns."
General Burnside was not the sharpest knife in the Union drawer. At this battle he concentrated on crossing this bridge with his forces when they could have waded across Antietam Creek 100 yards up or down the body of water. That allowed a much smaller Rebel force to hold his larger force in check for a few hours. When he finally did take the bridge, he ran into a Confederate force that was coming up from Harpers Ferry which made the battle pretty much of draw. Lincoln couched it as a Union victory which allowed him to issue the Emancipation Proclamation.
Burnside’s myopic approach to battlefield strategy was in full view at Fredericksburg when he ordered wave after wave of soldiers to attack Lee’s Confederate army where they held the high ground on a steep hill. For the Confederates it was like shooting fish in barrel. It only ended when Burnside said he would lead another suicide wave himself and his officers help him back.
Burnside’s last debacle was during the siege of Petersburg. There a group of Union soldiers constructed a mine under the battlefield to a spot under the Confederate position. They loaded it with dynamite and set it off. The resulting explosion, which become known as “the crater” left both sides confused. Without a coordinated plan the Union soldiers rushed in. Some of them fell and the crater and once more like fish in a barrel. After this embarrassing failure, Burnside was sent packing.
Burnside did design a reliable firearm, however, which was known as the “Burnside carbine.”
More years ago that I would to admit, I stood at the site with the coin in my hand and snapped the photo at the exact angle. This was before digital photography, and the shot is a picture of a picture.
Nice pick up
cool!
Sunshine Rare Coins
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Great coin, congrats thanks rln
Very nice coin... and Thanks to @BillJones for the history lesson... Cheers, RickO
Nice!
My YouTube Channel
That tree is the famous "Witness Tree," or "Burnside Sycamore." The tree was quite small but very visible in the iconic post-battle photo of the bridge by Alexander Gardner, from the "Yankee" side of Antietam Creek (compare it with BillJones' shot of the modern day bridge/tree, taken from the Rebel side):
Here's a warning parable for coin collectors...