Where Half The Morgans Went

It also created a problem as well though because all those dollar coins were backing for the silver certificates in circulation so melting them down required the removal of something like 270 million dollars worth of currency from circulation. Of course the economic slowdown this would normally cause helped to moderate the economic boom being created by the wartime economy.



Even better, that greater than market price was paid by the British not the Americans. Under the terms of the Pittman Act the British paid $1 per ouce for the silver, which was well above the market price, plus they also had to pay an additional amount per ounce to cover the expense of coining all of the new silver back into dollar coins.

Actually the recoinage of the Pittman act ended with the 1928 Peace dollars. The 1934 and 35 coins were the result of another act by the government. Another mandatory silver purchase act to support the silver interests, and it boost the governments silver stockpile. Only part of that purchase act went to silver dollars though, but it did swell the governments silver holdings by over 2 billion ounces.



The Pittman Act silver was melted and formed into bars here, it was not shipped in coin form. And considering the act melted nearly half of all the Morgans that had been coined theyweren't selected mutilated ones, just whatever bags happened to be closest to the door of the vault.

I can't Remer who said it, probably SD, but they said morgans would be equivalent to ASE's today without pittman. But even with 10% more being held back I'm sure the landscape would be analogous to the plot of Back to the Future 2.

Gyrene, Ken hoppel the chief coiner likes to tell people to touch the planchet before it goes into the press to "imprint your dna" into the coin forever. Not sure if that's true or not though. Did you touch yours? And what pattern did you get?

When you are in Virginia City, be sure to stop in and check out the Silver Queen.




This portrait, the Silver Queen,is hanging inside Virginia City's Silver Queen Saloon. The 15-foot tall portrait of Lady Luck was decked out in 3,261 (a nod to the depth of Virginia City's Combination Shaft) "Morgan" silver dollars minted in Carson City (in what is now the Nevada State Museum). Her belt was fashioned from 28 twenty-dollar gold pieces, and her choker and bracelets were minted from dimes.

I must say I can't believe I haven't seen it before, I know the silver queen but don't remember the portrait. I will definitely check it out now! (And I'll try to zoom in on the belt) I usually get a beer at the "Bucket of Blood" saloon then walk around for a few hours with mark Twains big face staring over the town

And a strapless dress too. That's gravity defying.

Yes the mint did not like the silver dollar and only made them when they had too. Do you know why they stopped striking Morgans in 1904? Because that was when all the silver that was purchased under the Sherman silver purchase act ran out. The Sherman act only lasted three years but it required all the silver purchased to be coined into silver dollars and it took ten years to do it.

An awful lot of Morgans seem to have ended up in Germany - that is the one U.S coin which most dealers here are likely on offer.
How did they get here, no idea.

i'll be in Reno next month, for the first time in 10 years. I intend to spend some time at

-brokencc, drooling over coins
-the mint museum in Carson City. I liked their mapping of the Comstock Lode, hope it's still there.
-downtown Virginia City, where I'll pay homage to the Silver Queen, and the Red Dog Saloon if it still exists (birthplace of psychedelic rock in the summer of 1965, which relocated to San Francisco shortly afterwards).
-downtown Reno, former divorce capital of the world. It used to be the world's largest dirty ashtray IMO, I hope it's cleaned itself up the way Vegas' Glitter Gulch has, it is the original and has the potential.
-Tahoe for the scenery.

If you're going to Reno/Carson/Virginia two good reads are Mark Twain's "Roughing It" and Harold Smith's "I Want to Quit Winners".