Where Are All The Old West Bullet Hole Silver Dollars?

Celtic and cascade, I am aware of both of these things. As I said solid bullets were used. But not always. I have held the ammunition used by several famous exibition shooters of the late 19th and early 20th century and it was not all solid bullets.

Did I hold Annie Oakley's ammo? No. I still doubt she used conventional ammo all the time.

Do I remember the names of the exibition shooters whose firearms and ammo I did see? No, not anymore. This all happened almost thirty years ago and at the time was little more than an "ain't that cool to know?" thing.

I shot competivly for several years and I have shot with and against and known many outstanding marksmen, including world record holders so I do have a better than average understanding of that which I speak.

Funny fact about Ok corral... it was a year or two BEFORE smokeless gunpowder was invented wich would have made that fight like one in thick fog. Nobody could see what they were shooting at after the first volley!

I have and you are correct. It's only about the size of a large horse stall or backyard swimming pool. and Yes, marksmanship is out at that range but needing to see where your target shifted in the chaos with so many on both sides in such a small confine had to be CRAZY!

Very nice. I would have been a contender if I had known about it... funny thing is those are love tokens not charms. I can't believe they weren't auctioned as such

Hi all. Thanks for having me as a member. I saw this post a few years back and between work and life in general this is the first chance I've had to join up and put in my Two Cents... well actually my one silver dollar. This was found by a friend of mine who, along with his wife ran a coffee house/metal detector shop in Devils Lake North Dakota. He just passed a couple of months back so this means even more to me now than it did originally and that's saying a lot.

He showed this to me years back on one of our trips over. My wife and I wanted to open a coffee shop and were still in the research stage. But as I'm also a detectorist and coin collector we hit it off and he shared his massive collection with me. This was one of those coins.

It's an 1884 S Morgan silver dollar which was found at the North Dakota School for the Deaf in Devils Lake ND which was founded on March 15, 1890. They used to hold shooting exhibitions on the grounds there back in those days. Sure enough this one was shot and never recovered. They searched for years, sadly in vain for the actual bullet that may have hit the coin. But the same day the coin was recovered and well within shooting distance from it they found the cartridge. It's marked on the end .45 Colt WRA Co. and after some research I believe it looks like the complete one I've shown in the pics.

As you see, definitely indented by the hit but did not go through. It's sad that they couldn't find the bullet and now that he's gone I don't know the exact area to even try hunting for it myself. That would have been the final part of the set. But the time period is defnitely correct... 1890 to early 1900's which is when the shooting exhibitions would have taken place. So here, at least, is one of the "old west bullet hole (well intented) silver dollars. Here's hoping some more will turn up over time.

Dan

@cascade, there was a "Mythbusters" episode where the boys were filing bullets at silver dollars. No ordinary gun/ bullet could put a hole in a silver dollar. They would look like what @Hauptmann showed-a very bad dent/ protrusion but no hole.

Great story, Hauptmann...and welcome to CCF!