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St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Lee Enterprises

Thursday, February 28, 2008 6:26 PM CST
Deadline for orders of Lincoln-Douglas debates anniversary coin set extended to Wednesday

By DAVE FOPAY, Staff Writer
dfopay@jg-tc.com

CHARLESTON — There’s a little more time to order a coin set commemorating the Lincoln-Douglas debates, the sales of which will benefit a local celebration of the debates’ 150th anniversary.

Karen Petersen, Charleston tourism director and part of a committee working on the celebration, said orders can be placed as late as Wednesday and still be submitted in time for the coins to arrive by June 1. The original deadline for orders had been Saturday.

Each of the coins recognizes one of the locations where the 1858 debates in the U.S. Senate campaign between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas took place. Charleston’s will depict a drummer playing a drum, as was thought to have occurred at the debate at the Coles County Fairgrounds.

The other six coins will commemorate debates at Alton, Freeport, Galesburg, Jonesboro, Ottawa and Quincy, and all seven will have a debate anniversary logo on the reverse side The coins will come in a wooden display and the set costs $100.

Peterson said orders with a credit card payment can be placed by calling her office at 348-0430.

Brochures with order forms included are available at Charleston City Hall, 520 Jackson Ave.; the Charleston Area Chamber of Commerce, 510 Jackson Ave.; Lincoln Log Cabin State Historic Site near Lerna; and the Times-Courier, 2110 Woodfall Ave., Charleston.

Peterson said she’s received about 20 orders for the coin sets so far and about half have been from the local area and most of the rest were also from Illinois. Still, she added, there have been orders from California and Nebraska, likely because a national coin collecting magazine recently featured information about the sets.

The coins come in a lined cherry-finished wooden display box with a signed and numbered certificate of authenticity, and a booklet explaining both the history of the debates and the background on the design of each coin. The sets are being offered in conjunction with the Lincoln-Douglas Society and the Illinois Lincoln-Douglas Debates Sesquicentennial Committee, and proceeds from the coin sales will benefit local Lincoln-Douglas Debate projects.

The local committee also plans to offer individual coins commemorating the Charleston debate alone, but they won’t have the same finish as the coins in the set.

The single coins should be available sometime before Charleston’s celebration on Sept. 20. The price has yet to be set.

Contact Dave Fopay at dfopay@jg-tc.com or 348-5733.

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