My 1960 Mint Set
Private
Updated:
2/2/2026
Views: 48
Just in case you don't recognize that GI sitting in the hatch of that tank, it is Elvis Presley. Elvis was drafted in 1958, served in the Second Armored Division (the Hell on Wheels Division) in Germany and finished his active duty in 1960. Below the Armored Division patch there is a strip with a name for those divisions that George Patton actually commanded during his career (those others were the 1st, Old Ironsides the 3rd; Spearhead, and the 5th; Victory).
I did my basic training at Fort Knox in Kentucky. Not only is Fort Knox the home of the Gold Depository, but it was then the home of the Armored Training Center and on promient display was an M48A3 tank which the Army proudly identified as the very tank to which Elvis had been assigned during his days in the service. Most draftees will tell you that the day they were released from active duty was somehow a re-birth, so 1960 is Elvis' second birth year I suppose.
Elvis was a tank driver and the tank he is sitting in is an M-48A3 Patton Medium Tank, which was the main line armor in those days. It would be replaced by the M60 which was a much improved version of the M48 and was brought into service as Elvis was leaving the Army. The M1 Abrams would replace the M60 and began replacing it in 1980. The Abrams was nothing like the older tanks, its technology, armor and drive train are truly revolutionary. People don't realize Elvis was a part of that world, and only returned to civilian life and his entertainment career in 1960 after two years in the Army.
Frankly, I was never all that much of an Elvis fan, I had an infantryman's natural disdain for tanks, but loved my time in Germany. My buddies tell me I had a great time there. Elvis, it is ofter forgotten, was a dominent force in popular music in those early years of the late 1950s and the pre-Beatles/Rolling Stones early 1960s. Basically, he was the King two years before and two years after his military service. So I guess I really do need to have a 1960 mint set. In fact, this is just one of the sets from 1945 (the end of World War II and the metalugical vagaries in our coinage caused by that conflict) and 1964 when we stopped using silver for our circulating coins.
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