So-Called Dollars With Swastikas, Klan Medals and a Massacre: CoinWeek on U.S. History

This article is based on the third installment of CoinWeek's series "Spotlight on So-Called Dollars," published on January 22, 2026, and written by Charles Morgan and Hubert Walker. It is not breaking news. It is a feature on old American medals and tokens that recall forgotten parts of the country's history.

The first two installments of the series covered the relationship between So-Called Dollars and America's classic commemoratives. The source identifies each piece by a number beginning with "HK-."

Swastikas on So-Called Dollars

CoinWeek notes that the swastika is a symbol of good luck in Asia and served a similar purpose in the West before the Nazis. By some estimates, thousands of medals and tokens made before World War II bear the symbol.

Examples include the 1926 Sesquicentennial International Exposition Medal (HK-457). HK-895 is a restrike of a Victory medal designed by Adam Pietz and manufactured by the United States Mint. It shows a classic female head with the word VICTORY on the obverse and an eagle in high relief on the reverse. A four-leaf clover, a swastika and the phrase GOOD LUCK are superimposed on the eagle's chest.

The writers call it one of the most attractive So-Called Dollar designs of the 20th century. Pietz's only coined federal design was the 1946 Iowa Half Dollar.

The Knights of the Ku Klux Klan

Hibler and Kappen list two Klan-related So-Called Dollars, HK-908 and HK-909. According to CoinWeek, both were produced at the height of the second Klan's influence in the 1920s.

The article says the second Klan was bolstered by the 1915 film The Birth of a Nation and claimed over six million members at its 1920s peak. Membership shrank to under 30,000 in the 1930s, and the second Klan was gone by the end of World War II.

Both medals carry the faux-Latin phrase "Non Silba Sed Anthar," said to mean "not for one's self but for others." The dual date "1866-1915" refers to the founding of the first and second Klans. The writers find this area of collecting detestable but say the two pieces represent a real facet of American history.

Denver Mint "First Strikes" (HK-876 and 876a)

These medals are said to be the first pieces struck by the Denver Mint in 1905. Some sources describe them as test strikes of new machinery; the writers wonder whether they were struck on equipment from the St. Louis World's Fair. Hibler and Kappen describe them as roughly the size of a double eagle. CoinWeek calls them scarce.

The Carter H. Harrison Memorial (HK-765 and 766)

According to the article, the Columbian World's Exposition ended in tragedy when Chicago Mayor Carter H. Harrison was shot in his home by Patrick Eugene Prendergast. The assassin believed Harrison would give him a patronage job for his support in the 1893 mayoral election; no such job came.

The medal was part of a fundraising campaign. It showed that the original buyer had donated one dollar toward the construction of the Carter H. Harrison Memorial.

The Gnaden Huetten Massacre Bicentennial (HK-707)

This 1955 piece marks the bicentennial of a massacre. Its reverse shows a green four-leaf clover, a horseshoe and the inscription GOOD LUCK, which the writers say seems disrespectful of the victims.

The event it commemorates took place on the evening of November 24, 1755, during the French and Indian War, when Native American warriors incited by the French attacked and burned a Moravian village. Eleven missionaries were killed, along with Christian Munsee Lenape Indians. A second, unrelated Gnaden Huetten Massacre took place in Ohio in 1782, in which 96 people were killed.

Fort Sumter (HK-11 and 11e)

CoinWeek writes that two months before Abraham Lincoln was sworn in, students from the Citadel, a military college in South Carolina, fired the first shots of the Civil War at a steamship sent to resupply Fort Sumter. A month after the inauguration, Col. James Chesnut, Jr. opened fire on the fort and took it a day later.

The 1861 privately issued medal carries this reverse inscription: "FORT SUMTER WAS EVACUATED, WITH ALL THE HONORS OF WAR, AFTER A MOST HEROIC DEFENSE BY MAJ R. ANDERSON, WITH A GARRISON OF 75 MEN, AGAINST A TERRIFIC BOMBARDMENT OF 30 HOURS DURATION BY THE SO. CA. REBELS NUMBERING 8000." The writers say it conveys the shock and indignation northerners felt at the start of the war.

The medal comes with two reverse die varieties, the second with a federal eagle and the inscription ONE FLAG AND ONE UNION NOW AND FOREVER, and three metal compositions for each. Fewer than 20 of each are known to survive, according to CoinWeek.

Source: CoinWeek, "Spotlight on So-Called Dollars 3: America's Forgotten History" (January 22, 2026).