New Morgans for gold

[RogerB]

Paying for new 1878 dollars in gold was, initially, not an option.

18780313 Gold for new dollars.jpg (235.36 KiB) Viewed 1091 times

[HawkeEye]

A unique find as always, thanks.

[tbconcrete]

Nice find Roger. Thanks for sharing, as always.
Tim

[vampicker]

Baffling that this would have been an issue. I would have thought the opposite more likely

[RogerB]

Previous instructions, going back to pre-Civil War were that standard silver dollars were only produced on the order of silver depositors. They were tariffed at $1.04 to $1.08 in gold. (This was in part a result of 1853 reduction in smaller silver coin weight and legal tender status.) Collectors were told that the Mint did not sell coins, but struck them on demand from depositors of bullion. People were encouraged to buy proof coins if they wanted a silver dollar. This remained the case when the last seated dollars were made in early 1873 and into the first part of 1878. Internally, new dollars were passed around for silver bullion or equivalent until the change to accepting gold was made - but only for small quantities.

[vampicker]

Thanks for the insight

[RogerRock]

Previous instructions, going back to pre-Civil War were that standard silver dollars were only produced on the order of silver depositors. They were tariffed at $1.04 to $1.08 in gold. (This was in part a result of 1853 reduction in smaller silver coin weight and legal tender status.) Collectors were told that the Mint did not sell coins, but struck them on demand from depositors of bullion. People were encouraged to buy proof coins if they wanted a silver dollar. This remained the case when the last seated dollars were made in early 1873 and into the first part of 1878. Internally, new dollars were passed around for silver bullion or equivalent until the change to accepting gold was made - but only for small quantities.

It seems incredible to me that 1853 seated liberty silver dollars were not reduced in weight (like smaller denominations) and then mostly used like "trade dollars" in overseas transactions. These 1853 seated liberty silver dollars remain scarce today and inspired me to invest in an AU 55 example for a year set.

[RogerB]

The standard silver dollar presented several problems in 1853. First, it was the "standard" unit of money in silver metal and had been defined as such in law. Since the 1853 proposal affected only silver coins, keeping the dollar at its historical silver content meant that we could argue that our standard had not been changed. This was also linked to the fanciful gold to silver ratio and reducing the standard silver dollar weight altered this much-admired, but little-understood ratio.

Another argument was that only small silver - half-dimes through half-dollars - was being exported (mostly halves and quarters) so there was no need to change the dollar. As silver value increased in relation to gold, the silver dollar became worth more than the gold dollar, and this persisted for than 20 years. Depositors of silver could have it made into any denomination they wanted, so silver dollars had to be requested. The depositor received about 8% less face value if he chose to have silver dollars returned to him.

Use in Asian trade responded to the premium on Mexican pesos, so we see an increase in 1859-60 in response to reduced Mexican exports due to their Civil War (1858-1860), and again from 1869 to 1873 when Mexico changed the design and Asian brokers cut their premium on the new Peso. Silver contents in troy oz. were: Mexico peso - 0.7859; Standard silver dollar - 0.7734; Trade dollar - 0.7875.