The United States Mint will open sales on the Best of the Mint 1916 Walking Liberty Half Dollar Gold Coin and Silver Medal Set, item 26BM3, on August 6, 2026, at noon Eastern Time. Announced in a July 30 press release, the set is the third of five in the Mint’s semiquincentennial Best of the Mint program, and it carries the largest gold coin the series has offered so far: a half ounce of 24 karat gold, paired with a one ounce silver medal in 99.9% fine silver. Mintage is capped at 30,000 sets, and orders are limited to one per household for the first 24 hours.
Of the three 1916 designs the Mint selected for this program, this is the one collectors were always going to circle. Adolph Weinman’s Walking Liberty half dollar outlived its own denomination and then outlived its own retirement, and it remains in production today on a coin most American households have handled. Putting it back into gold for the 250th anniversary is less a revival than a continuation.
The 1916 Walking Liberty Half Dollar: Weinman’s Design and First Year Mintages
In 1916 the Mint replaced all three of Charles Barber’s silver denominations in a single year, the culmination of the artistic overhaul that Theodore Roosevelt had pushed a decade earlier. Weinman took the dime and the half dollar. Hermon A. MacNeil took the quarter. All three debuted late in the calendar year, which is why the first year mintages are so modest: 608,000 halves from Philadelphia, 1,014,400 from Denver, and just 508,000 from San Francisco, still the series key.
Those 1916 halves also carry their mint marks on the obverse beside the motto, a placement the Mint abandoned partway through 1917 and never used again in the series. The design itself ran until 1947, through two world wars and the Depression, and then came back in 1986 when the Mint adapted Weinman’s striding Liberty for the obverse of the American Silver Eagle. That is the quiet fact underneath this release. The Best of the Mint program is reissuing a design that never actually stopped being issued.
The 2026 Walking Liberty Half Dollar 24 Karat Gold Coin
The gold coin reproduces Weinman’s obverse: Liberty striding toward the sunrise with the American flag billowing behind her, branches of laurel and oak gathered in her left arm. Inscriptions are LIBERTY, IN GOD WE TRUST, and the original date, 1916. The semiquincentennial marker is a Liberty Bell privy mark carrying the numeral 250, the same device used on the first two releases. The reverse carries the eagle facing left on its mountaintop perch, wings raised, with a pine sapling growing from a rift in the rock, and the inscriptions UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, E PLURIBUS UNUM, and HALF DOLLAR.
Struck at West Point in an Uncirculated finish, the coin holds a half troy ounce of 99.99% gold in a 27.00 mm diameter. That is a noticeably tighter package than the coin it copies. The 1916 original measured 30.6 mm and weighed 12.5 grams in 90% silver, so the gold version is smaller across and heavier in hand, which will change how the relief reads even before the metal does.
The Walking Liberty Inspired Silver Medal
The companion medal is where the series does its original work. Rather than reproducing the half dollar a second time in silver, the Mint has taken elements from Weinman’s design and rebuilt them as a single continuous scene running across both faces, rendered in the Art Deco idiom that displaced his neoclassicism in the decades after 1916.
The obverse honors the half dollar directly, with Liberty extending her right hand while holding branches in her left. The sun and a rolling landscape carry the composition over to the reverse, where an eagle soars. Inscriptions are limited to LIBERTY and UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. The medal is struck at Philadelphia in one troy ounce of 99.9% silver at 40.60 mm with a plain edge, and like the gold coin it carries an Uncirculated finish.
Best of the Mint Walking Liberty Set Specifications
| Gold coin | Silver medal | |
|---|---|---|
| Denomination | Half dollar | None, medal |
| Composition | 99.99% gold | 99.9% silver |
| Fine weight | 0.500 troy ounce | 1.000 troy ounce |
| Diameter | 27.00 mm | 40.60 mm |
| Edge | Reeded | Plain |
| Finish | Uncirculated | Uncirculated |
| Struck at | West Point | Philadelphia |
| Item number | 26BM3 (set) | |
| Mintage limit | 30,000 sets | |
| Household limit | 1 at launch |
How the First Two Best of the Mint Sets Sold
The program’s launch behavior has been anything but uniform. The 1916 Mercury Dime set, released June 4 with a tenth ounce gold coin, took most of its 30,000 cap within hours and later returned to the catalogue at a reduced price as the Mint’s weekly gold repricing worked in buyers’ favor. The 1916 Standing Liberty Quarter Dollar set, released July 10 with a quarter ounce coin, moved at a far steadier pace, reportedly clearing roughly 14,000 sets in its first four days before the household limit lifted on July 13, and it has remained available since.
The variable in both cases is the entry price. The Mint had not posted a figure for the Walking Liberty set at announcement, and it will not until the gold pricing range table is applied in the week of release. What is certain is that the gold content doubles from the second set to the third, which pushes this release into a different bracket of buyer. Whether that slows the 30,000 cap or concentrates it among the program’s committed set builders is the question August 6 will answer.
What Comes Next in the Best of the Mint Series
Collectors have three weeks to decide, and then very little breathing room. The fourth release, the 1804 Silver Dollar set with a full ounce of gold, is scheduled for August 27, putting two Best of the Mint launches inside a single month and forcing a real budget choice for anyone assembling the complete five set run. The 1907 Saint-Gaudens High Relief $20 set closes the program.
For all the semiquincentennial packaging around it, this release lands on the most durable design the Mint has ever commissioned. Weinman’s Liberty has been striding toward the same sunrise for 110 years, across silver half dollars, bullion eagles, and now a half ounce of gold bearing a Liberty Bell and the numeral 250. Very few American coin designs survive one reinvention. This one is on its third.
Frequently asked questions
When does the Best of the Mint 1916 Walking Liberty set go on sale? Sales open on August 6, 2026, at noon Eastern Time at usmint.gov, under item number 26BM3.
How much does the set cost? The Mint had not posted a price at announcement. Pricing follows the Mint’s gold pricing range table, which is reset against the market each week, so the figure is set in the week of release.
What is the mintage of the Walking Liberty gold coin and silver medal set? The set is capped at 30,000, with a household order limit of one for the first 24 hours. There is no separate product limit.
Is the gold coin legal tender? Yes. The gold coin carries a half dollar denomination and is struck at West Point. The companion silver medal has no denomination and is struck at Philadelphia.
Can the coin and medal be bought separately? No. Both pieces are sold only together as a set.
