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 Replies: 18 / Views: 3,787 |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1215 Posts |
Is it because of trade with the Orient?
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1192 Posts |
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
1215 Posts |
Large dollars as in Morgans and peace.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1192 Posts |
I will have to look it up. I thought they were equilivant. It hurts my wallet to buy any thing bigger than a silver half at once since I started recollecting silver coins.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1215 Posts |
You can see on (124) Not Allowed - Auto-Removed that 2 half dollars would be $12.60 whereas one morgan is over $13.48
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
4589 Posts |
Because in 1853, when Congress changed the standard for silver coins, they changed all of them EXCEPT the Dollar.
-----Burton 50+ year / Life / Emeritus ANA member (joined 12/1/1973) Life member: Numismatics International, CONECA Member: TNA, FtWCC, NETCC, EveryCountry (online) coin club Owned by three cats and a wife of 40+ years (joined 1983) Author: 3rd Edition of the Sample Slabs book, https://www.sampleslabs.info/ |
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Bedrock of the Community
Australia
21786 Posts |
Thankyou BStrauss3.
I had read about this some years ago, but I had no way of recalling it.
You did it for me!
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Pillar of the Community
United States
5854 Posts |
It begins with the California gold rush which led to a increase in silver prices relative to gold. As already mentioned, the weight was reduced for fractional silver coinage but not the silver dollar. As far as I know, the reason why the weight of dollar was not reduce is unclear. I have read that one possible reason is that they didn't want to reduce the weight on their flagship coin. Like you have mention, another might to be to compete with 8 reales as a trade coin in the orient.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1192 Posts |
So ten dimes doesn't equal the silver amount of a silver dollar?
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Pillar of the Community
United States
5854 Posts |
Quote:
So ten dimes doesn't equal the silver amount of a silver dollar? One dime has 0.07234 oz. of silver. So 10 dimes would have 0.7234 oz of silver while a silver dollar has 0.77344 oz of silver. |
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
17884 Posts |
The dollars weight was not reduced because as mentioned they did not want to reduce the weight of the standard coin. The weights of the other coins was reduced because the rising value of silver had caused them to be worth more as metal than as money. The fact that they didn't reduce the weight of the dollar coin effectively killed the circulation of the dollar coin as it now had about $1.04 worth of silver in it. In addition to reducing the weight of silver in the minor coins they also restricted their legal tender status. The silver dollar remained at unlimited legal tender, but the minor coins were limited to no more than $5.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4589 Posts |
The reference to this is "Statutes at Large, 32nd Congress, 2nd Session - pg 160" (LOC Link http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage)Interesting historical note, the change in 1853 did not affect the 3c silver authorized in 1851. It remained legal tender only up to 30c. (Statutes at Large, 31st Congress, 2nd Session, pg 591). -----Burton 50+ year / Life / Emeritus ANA member (joined 12/1/1973) Life member: Numismatics International, CONECA Member: TNA, FtWCC, NETCC, EveryCountry (online) coin club Owned by three cats and a wife of 40+ years (joined 1983) Author: 3rd Edition of the Sample Slabs book, https://www.sampleslabs.info/ |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
711 Posts |
The dollar weight was kept the same as the 8 real for international trade.
You could also argue that by making the dollar coin worth more than one dollar's worth of change in silver terms, you made the dollar coins not circulate and helped circulate the paper money of the time. Eventually this leads to the crime of 1873 and the demonetization of silver.
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
17884 Posts |
Problem was no one really wanted the paper money of the time. It's value was very questionable and every time you took or spent a note you had to look it up in a reference to find out what its value was based on the latest financial strength of the issuing bank. (and hope that estimate was accurate and up to date) Then factor in some discount based on the distance you would have to go in order to be able to redeem it. Then you had to worry about counterfeits or altered notes. Paper money was a DISASTER. There was no federal paper money and every bank (and a lot of businesses) issued their own paper money. there were thousands of different types of notes in circulation.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4589 Posts |
BTW, sorry but my links didn't work. Start here: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/amlaw/lwsllink.htmlselect "List of Public Acts" under "Volume 10: 32nd-33rd, 1851-1855" and then put 160 in the page turner (box). If there were any fireworks, there's no real record of it... for that you need the "Congressional Globe", for the 32nd congress, 1st sesssion, see pages 694, 907 and 921 What is the Globe? Quoting the LOC: Quote:
Congressional Globe
The Globe, as it is usually called, contains the congressional debates of the 23rd through 42nd Congresses (1833-73). There are forty-six volumes in the series based on the table found in the Third Edition of Checklist of United States Public Documents 1789-1909, Volume 1B (pp. 1466-69).
The Globe is the third of the four series of publications containing the debates of Congress. It was preceded by the Annals of Congress and the Register of Debates and succeeded by the Congressional Record. The first five volumes of the Globe (23rd Congress, 1st Session through 25th Congress, 1st Session, 1833-37) overlap with the Register of Debates. Initially the Globe contained a "condensed report" or abstract rather than a verbatim report of the debates and proceedings. With the 32nd Congress (1851), however, the Globe began to provide something approaching verbatim transcription.
The contents of the appendix of each volume vary from Congress to Congress, but appendixes typically contain presidential messages, reports of the heads of departments and cabinet officers, texts of laws, and appropriations. Speeches not indexed or referenced on the pages reprinting the debates appear in the appendix as well. If you have some spare time, page through the Globe. It turns out that our current crop of congress-critters are no better nor worse behaved than their ancestors. -----Burton 50+ year / Life / Emeritus ANA member (joined 12/1/1973) Life member: Numismatics International, CONECA Member: TNA, FtWCC, NETCC, EveryCountry (online) coin club Owned by three cats and a wife of 40+ years (joined 1983) Author: 3rd Edition of the Sample Slabs book, https://www.sampleslabs.info/ |
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
17884 Posts |
Sec 5 of that act is also important. That was the provision that ended free coinage of silver for the citizens. You could still bring your gold to the mint and have it made into coins, but silver could only be made into bars. All the silver coins were now coined on the government account
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Replies: 18 / Views: 3,787 |
Posted 10/15/2014 8:17 pm
