DO YOUR BUNS NEED WARMING?
by Bill Fivaz (Life Member #7)

The party was great,
No threat of a storm,
But who was to know,
THE BUNS WERE NOT WARM?!

There was turkey and stuffing,
And veggies in good form;
But alas and alack,
THE BUNS WERE NOT WARM!

But all did survive,
Good fellowship was had;
Warm buns were no problem,
Our chairs had a HEATING PAD!!

UPCOMING COIN SHOWS IN MARCH

    There are two coin shows planned for the month of March.

March 5^th (Saturday) and March 6th (Sunday) will see a coin show at the Northway Mall in Anchorage. If you would like to get a table at the coin show contact club member Mike McKinnon (evening phone number #248-0955).

March 19^th (Saturday) and March 20^th (Sunday) will see a coin show at the Cottonwood Creek Mall in Wasilla. Contact Robert Hall (evening phone number #561-8343) for tables.

See you at the coin shows in March......Your Editors.

MARCH 2^ND IS ELECTION DAY FOR CLUB OFFICERS

In accordance with our club by-laws, club members attending the March 2^nd meeting will be electing our club officers. At this time the positions of President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer and one board seat are to be filled by election.

Candidates who have "thrown their hat in the ring" for these positions are:

• For President:            Carl

• For Vice President:    John Larson

• For Secretary:            Larry Nakata

• For Treasurer:           Greg Samorajski

• For Open Board Seat: Bill Hamilton / Loren Lucason

In accordance with the by-laws of our coin club, President Stan Mead must step down since he cannot run for a third consecutive term as President. Stan will accordingly fill the Board seat reserved for the outgoing President. Justin Samorajski still has one more year to go to fill out his term as Board member.

Members can still "throw their hat in the ring" at our club meeting on March 2^nd.

We need good people for serve in these club officer positions......Your Board.

THE HISTORY OF THE U.S. SILVER DOLLAR
by Larry Nakata (Life Member #3)

    At our club meeting on February 2^nd, I gave a presentation on my interpretation of the history of the U.S. Silver Dollar. We had a somewhat sparse turnout because of the inclement weather that evening (lots of snow and ice)...so my presentation was given to the "die-hards" in our coin club who attended. I thought it best to follow-up with this article for the benefit of those who could not attend.

Let me begin by saying that the history of the U.S. Silver Dollar starts following our country's Revolutionary War. When you become your own nation, having your own coinage gives a sense of identity. This was recognized by our U.S. Congress.

At the time of the Revolutionary War, Spain had established mints in the New World, one of which was in Mexico. As a result Spanish (or rather, Mexican) silver coinage was being used in the.United States and continued to be used right up until 1857 when our U.S. Congress declared foreign coinage as "null and void" for domestic use.

Thanks to the efforts of Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, our U.S. Congress approved the establishment of the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia (in 1791). Congress followed up in 1792 with a bill that formally established our nation's coinage. It was this bill that created the U.S. Silver Dollar.

Since the Spanish (or rather Mexican) "piece of eight" (otherwise known as the 8 reale silver coin) was the silver dollar of it's day, Congress authorized the U.S. Silver Dollar to be 416 grains in weight with silver purity at 89.24% of the coin.

It turns out the 8 reale coin had more silver content than the U.S. Silver Dollar. This would create an interesting situation as the U.S. Silver Dollar evolves in the 19^th century.

The U.S. Mint started mintage of coins in 1793, but it was not until 1794 that the first U.S. Silver Dollars were minted. Lack of silver bullion and a large enough minting press capable of minting silver dollars delayed the process.

Upon mintage of the first silver dollars, what followed was an interesting period of time in which there were large gaps of years when U.S. Silver Dollars were not minted. This got my curiosity. In my research, this is what I found:

In the late 1790s and early 1800s, one dollar was lot of money to the common worker in the United States. As a result, coin denominations below 50 cents were really used for every day transactions. It was not until the aftermath of the U.S. Civil War that silver dollars became commonly used. I suppose one could say that inflation eventually brought the silver dollar into it's own. So...in the early years of this country, the U.S. Silver Dollar was primarily used for larger transactions between businesses and banks. The U.S. Silver Dollar was also used for foreign trade.

Silver bullion was also in short supply in the late 1790s and early 1800s. This limited the ability of the U.S. Mint to make large numbers of silver dollars. You need only look at the early year U.S. Silver Dollar mintage numbers vs. the mintage numbers in the latter part of the 19^th century to see this.

Emphasis was placed on mintage of the lower denomination U.S. silver coins.

By the early 1800s we see an exodus of U.S. Silver Dollars out of the country for the purpose of foreign trade. This results in President Thomas Jefferson ordering a stop to any further mintage of silver dollars (in 1804). For your information, the U.S. Silver Dollar minted in 1804 used the 1803 dies. The famed 1804 Silver Dollar was actually part of special Proof Sets minted in the 1834-1835 period as presentation sets to special dignitaries.... such as the King of Siam. If you look at the price of these early U.S. silver dollars (1794-1803), you will find they command very high prices in any grade.

As the years progress, the United States sees the development of it's mining industry. Silver and Gold mines get established in the East Coast and in the 1850s we see the California Gold Strike and the Nevada Comstock Lode Silver mines. The owners of these silver and gold mines became very powerful lobby groups with our U.S. Congress.

By 1831, this suspension of U.S. Silver Dollar coinage is lifted. However, it is not until 1836 that we see the next group of silver dollar minted (The U.S. Gobrecht Silver Dollars).

From 1836 to 1839, we see very low mintages of these Gobrecht Silver Dollars. They were primarily minted as pattern coins....and as coins sought by collectors. Because of the extremely low mintage numbers of the Gobrecht Silver Dollars....the surviving coins today command extremely high prices.

In 1839, our U.S. Congress changed the weight of the U.S. Silver Dollar from 416 grains to 412 & '/i grains. This change in weight only affected the copper content of the silver dollar. The same amount of silver still remained in the coin with the purity changing from 89.24% to 90% silver content.

In 1840 we see the Liberty Seated Dollar (1840-1873) come into existence. With silver bullion now being produced in great quantities by the U.S. silver mining interests, political pressure is put on our U.S. Congress to mint more of these silver dollars. What also helped was that in 1857 foreign coins (such as the Mexican 8 reale silver coin) could no longer be used for domestic circulation in the United States...by Act of Congress.

However, during the 1840-1873 period of time, something happens.

European countries such as England and Germany go to a gold standard in backing of their paper currency. This results in less demand for silver by these countries. In the United States, the Silver vs. Gold lobbying interests "go at each others throats" in having their precious metal prevail as the currency and coinage standard.

Simply put... .the United States had too much silver.

By 1873, the U.S. Gold interests prevail when our U.S. Congress passes the Act of 1873 in which production is stopped on mintage of the U.S. silver three cent coin, the silver half dime, and the U.S. Silver Dollar.

Congress did, however, "throw a bone" to the Silver mining interests by authorizing the mintage of the U.S. Trade Silver Dollar. Numismatic history books would say that this was a "BIG MISTAKE".

Remember when I said earlier that the Spanish/ Mexican 8 reale silver coin had more silver content than the U.S. Silver Dollar?! Well...this became the excuse for mintage of the U.S. Trade Dollar, a coin that would weigh 420 grains with 90% silver content in the coin. This now made the U.S. Trade Dollar a coin that had more silver content than the 8 reale coin... thus making it more attractive for foreign trade. With the major market at that time being China....the U.S. Trade Dollar saw favor in the eyes of the Chinese merchants. These merchants would test the quality of the coin and counter-stamp the coin with a mark (called a chop mark) that indicated the coin was good for trade in China.

While the U.S. Trade Dollar was intended for foreign trade, it created a much bigger problem domestically. The Act of 1873 allowed the U.S. Trade Dollar to be legal tender for domestic transactions up to $5.

Keep in mind that there were large numbers of Liberty Seated dollars that had less silver content than the U.S. Trade dollar. This created a situation where we now had two types of silver dollars circulating in the economy...each coin with different silver content. This resulted in big problems for U.S. businesses having to deal with both coins.

Something had to be done.

With so much silver continuing to be mined in the United States...especially from the Comstock Lode mines....it was only a matter of time before the Silver mining lobbying efforts again prevailed. Our U.S. Congress was to pass the Bland-Allison Act of 1878.

The Bland-Allison Act sees the creation of the U.S. Morgan Silver Dollar. Like the Liberty Seated Dollar, the Morgan Dollar had the same weight (412 & Vi grains) with the same 90% silver content. Mintage of the U.S. Trade Dollar gets cut back to only small amounts of proof coins from 1879 to the Trade Dollar's final demise in 1885. In effect, the Trade Dollar was phased out in favor of the Morgan Dollar.

The Bland-Allison Act of 1878 also required the U.S. Treasury purchase $2-$4 million in silver bullion every month (at prevailing silver market prices) for the purpose of minting U.S. Silver Dollars. Thanks to the Bland-Allison Act and the Sherman Act (of 1890), large amounts of Morgan Silver Dollars got minted to the point where too many silver dollars were made.

Morgan Dollars were discontinued in 1905 because of this overabundance of silver dollars.

Despite the discontinuation, the situation of too many silver dollars gets so aggravated that in 1918 our U.S. Congress passes the Pittman Act which authorizes melting down of 270 million U.S. silver dollars into silver bullion.

It was not until 1921 that we again see the U.S. Silver Dollar minted again. In 1921, both the Morgan and Peace Silver Dollars were minted...with 1921 being the final year for the Morgan Dollar, Of note, the 1921 silver dollars were minted under pressure from the casino lobby. They needed gaming tokens.

The U.S. Peace Dollar (1921-1935) came about as a Commemorative Peace coin following the end of World War I (the so-called "War to end all wars"). Through the lobbying efforts of the American Numismatic Association (ANA) the Peace Dollar comes into existence.

Although mintage of the Peace Dollar ceased following 1935, of interest is that in 1964 our U.S. Congress again authorized mintage of this coin. Some 316,000 Peace Dollars were minted but not circulated in 1964. Reason for not circulating the 1964 Peace Dollar was that in 1965 our U. S Congress passed the Coinage Act of 1965 that eliminated or significantly reduced the use of silver in our nation's coinage. That was the year that created our present day copper clad coins. Since the 1965 legislation by Congress superseded it's previous 1964 legislation, this resulted in all of the 1964 Silver Peace Dollars presumably being melted down. There are reports of some surviving 1964 Peace Dollar specimens today....although unconfirmed. It is illegal to presently own a 1964 Peace Dollar as it was never intended for circulation.

Since 1935, we see U.S. one dollar coins evolve in the form of Eisenhower (Ike) Dollars (1971-1978), Susan B. Anthony Dollars (1979-1981, and 1999), and present day Sacagawea Dollars (2000- present). I do not consider these newer dollars as true U.S. Silver Dollars (a reference to the 197IS to 1976S Ike Dollars which were 40% silver clad coins).

There are also the U.S. Commemorative Silver one dollar coins and the modern day U.S. American Silver Eagle dollars (the American Silver Eagle being a bullion type coin in my view). I do not consider these type coins as true silver dollars either.

To conclude....the U.S. Silver Dollar's history was marked with a lot of politics that resulted from the actions of our U.S. Congress. These politics were influenced by the U.S. Silver and Gold mining interests in the 19^th century, the Mexican 8 reale silver coin, an overabundance of too many silver dollars in the early 20lh century, and even influence from the American Numismatic Association (ANA) and casino lobbies.

In my view, it was these politics that accounted for the large gaps in years when U.S. Silver Dollars were not minted......Larry Nakata.

References:

• "Silver Dollars & Trade Dollars of the United States-A Complete Encyclopedia" by Q. David Bowers c. 1993.

• "The United States Trade Dollar" by John M. Wilier c. 1983.

• "The Liberty Seated Dollar 1840-1873" by Weimar W. White c. 1985.

• "The United States Early Silver Dollars from 1794-1803" by M. J. Bolender c. 1988.

Club Officers

• President - Stanley Mead - Eves: 349-6009
• Vice President - John Larson - Eves: 276-3292
• Treasurer - Greg Samorajski - Eves: 346-3420
• Secretary - Larry Nakata - Days: 269-5603 Eves: 563-1729

Board of Directors

• Loren Lucason - Eves: 272-3700
• Justin Samorajski - Eves: 346-3420
• Richard Bilak - Eves: 343-6160

Editors

• Larry Nakata
• Mike Nourse
• Loren Lucason

Club Archivist / Photographer

• Open Position

DUES

• Life Membership $250
• Regular Membership $25/year
• Associate Membership $10/year
• Senior/Disabled $10/year
• YN (Junior) Membership $5/year

The Anchorage Coin Club is a non-profit organization formed to provide information, education, and a meeting place for individuals having an interest in numismatics.

Correspondence Address: Anchorage Coin Club, P.O. Box 230169, Anchorage, Alaska 99523