CaptHenway

I wonder how effective the discontinuance of striking dollar coins was in discouraging the export of coined silver. I understand that if both dollars and half dollars were available in unlimited supply the exporters would choose dollars because they were faster to count, but once American dollars became unavailable you could hardly expect importers/exporters to simply give up doing business. If they had to ship twice as many half dollars as they would have dollars, why not?

I wonder if the comments about the ductility of the silver alloys and the unsuitability of some of them for striking smaller silver coins wasn't a small lie on the Mint's part to justify them striking mostly the more efficient Half Dollars? Two Half Dollars had to cost less to manufacture than ten Dimes or 20 Half Dimes.

I would love to see some wealthy philanthropist underwrite the cost of a program to do elemental analysis on hundreds, if not thousands, of pre-1853 U.S. gold and silver coins. Obviously so long as the required gold or silver content was there they did not care very much what else made up the alloy, with the exception that the alloy in the gold coinage had to include some silver up to 5% of the gross weight.

I vote thin rolled stock.

The problem is not with YOU.

"Fuh-leece Navidad!"

I still say genuine error.

I looked at it again and I see ZERO reasons to doubt it.

Exactly!

I am in agreement with David Lange. I cannot condemn it from these pictures. I think that it does need to be looked at by somebody with Authentication credentials.

I think it is a genuine off-center error. The scratches were probably caused by it getting caught in a counting machine because the strike bent it, and some workman used a nail to dig it out of the machine.

I suspect that at the time a long distance call was a lot more expensive than a telegram.

Interesting that he calls it a "silver dollar."

Damaged and polished. At least it is not currently on fire!

Yes, but what would the person at the cash box do? I grew up in Detroit at a time that the U.S. Dollar and the Canadian Dollar were very close to par, and you could spend either locally at par, including the coinage. I even had the Whitman blue folders for Canadian coins up through 25 Cents. Then a new Canadian government came into power somewhere in the 1960's and instituted some economic policies that drove the Canadian Dollar below 95 cents US. The corner candy store put up a sign that a Canadian quarter was now worth 23 cents, a Canadian dime 9 cents, and a Canadian nickel 4 cents. Cents were still even because they could not be discounted.

And I am curious if all those people melting down .900 fine coin silver bothered to throw a little pure silver into the melt to bring it up to .925 Sterling levels, or if they just figured that the customers would not be able to tell the difference.

If a silversmith did need a small quantity of silver and was OK with using a ,900 fine U.S. coin or two, by using a silver dollar he got approximately 7% more silver than if he used two half dollar. Hence the preference for dollars. This assumes of course that either option was easily available at face value in exchange for paper dollars, which was not always the case. I'm not sure that any silver coins were available at face value in exchange for paper in 1869.

So if one of my ancestors rowed across the river from Detroit to Windsor in 1863 and went to Ye Olde Tim Horton's to buy a box of scones that cost 25 Cents and he presented a U.S. quarter in payment, would the transaction be even or would he owe a little more or a little less?

Just remove "circulation" and yuou should be OK.

If I might toss out two-thirds of a quibble here, what do you mean by "a circulation pair of dies?" There are certain Proof issues where dies were made specifically for the Proof coinage from slightly modified artwork. These do occasionally turn up on a business strike coin, to the delight of cherrypickers everywhere. TD

Your weight will increase accordingly!

I think you might want to take another look at Assertion #5.

Oops. My bad. I meant the 1891 Seated Liberty Half, with the John Reich eagle from 1807. Not the Barber.

On the 1807 Half Dollar, I specified the Capped Bust version, not the earlier Draped Bust, Heraldic Eagle type struck that year.

I look forward to reading your article, and I hope that I helped in some small way, but just to play devil's advocate, the 1875 head and the 1876 head are more similar than different. Look at the reverses of the 1807 Capped Bust half and the 1891 Barber Half. One can reasonably argue that they are the same design with differences in inscriptions. At the other end of the difference scale, the two different $50 Half Union obverses are certainly the same design, even though they have slight differences in ornamentation. Your opinion that the 1876 and 1877 designs are not "Sailor Heads" is a perfectly valid opinion, but others may have other opinions.