The York County, Maine, Tercentenary half dollar is a 50-cent memorative coin minted in 1936 to memorate the tercentenary (300th anniversary) of the founding of York County The obverse shows Brown's Garrison, the fort around which York County was ed, while the reverse depicts the county's arms

A memorative coin craze in 1936 saw some coins authorized by the United States Congress that were of mainly local significance; the York County issue was one of these Legislation permitting the half dollar passed Congress without opposition in the first half of 1936 Maine artist Walter H Rich designed the issue; his work has garnered mixed praise and dislike from numismatic authors

The mittee in charge of selling the coins to the public asked that the maximum issue of 30,000 coins be struck, but for uncertain reasons the Philelphia Mint struck 25,000 for public Fewer than 19,000 h been sold by 1937, more than half to Mainers; the rest were sold in the 1950s As of 2020, the York County half dollar catalogs for around $200, depending on condition The first European settlement in what is Maine was at Saco in 1631, w the fortification kn as Brown's Garrison was built In 1636, York County was ed, the first and southernmost county in Maine and one of the oldest political units in the United States

Sparked by low-mintage issues which appreciated in value, the market for United States memorative coins spiked in 1936 Until 1954, the entire mintage of such issues was sold at face value by the government to a group authorized by Congress, who then tried to sell the coins at a profit to the public The new pieces then entered the secondary market, and in early 1936 all earlier memoratives sold at a premium to their issue s The apparently easy to be me by purchasing and holding memoratives attracted many to numismatics, and they sought to purchase the new issues Congress authorized a large number of memorative coins in 1936; no fewer than fif new issues were struck, each authorized by legislation At the request of the groups authorized to purchase them, several coins minted in prior years were produced again dated 1936, longest-lived among them the Oregon Trail Memorial half dollar, first struck in 1926

The York County, Maine, Tercentenary half dollar was one of several early memoratives issued despite being mostly of local, not national, significance The memorative was approved largely due to the connections that many of the coin's sponsors h, including numismatist Walter P Nichols, who was at the time the Treasurer of the mittee for memoration of the Founding of York County The bill authorizing its minting passed at the height of the speculative market in memorative coins Rick Sear, in a 2011 article, wrote, "By 1936, thanks to enabling legislations put forth by acmodating Congressmen, it was possible-or nearly so-to a coin struck to observe a town picnic Although t was no paper trail shog payoffs from local