Check Out These Silver Dollars
By Teresa Ambord
Morgan Dollars
Look at the back of a Morgan Dollar and you'll see a picture of an underfed American Eagle. On the front, Lady Liberty, modeled after the favorite teacher of the designer, George T. Morgan. Morgan Dollars were made of 90 percent silver, ten percent copper. The edges are reeded and the minted mark is below the wreath on the reverse.
These coins were mostly minted in Philadelphia, though some were minted near the source at Carson City, Nevada. That mint only operated until 1893. The coins that were struck there are especially rare today.
Before Morgan dollars, Americans used a dollar coin that fell out of favor and was discontinued in 1873. Five years later, the Morgan Dollar was minted for a very practical reason. America had just experienced its richest silver strike ever in the Nevada Comstock lode. The vein of silver was so rich that a million dollars of silver was pulled from the Comstock mine every week. But with no significant market for silver, Nevada's economy would collapse if the government did not step in and purchase two to four million dollars worth of silver bullion per month. Thus, the new silver coin.
Here are the two Web sites where you can see and purchase the Morgan Dollars:
Peace Dollars
The last "true" silver dollar... that's what collectors call the Peace Dollar. It was the last silver dollar minted with 90 percent silver. The Peace Dollar was minted from 1921-28 and again in 1934 and 1935, to nationally commemorate the end of World War I.
Click here to see samples of the Peace Dollar:
Peace Dollars were designed by Anthony deFrancisi. The obverse depicts Lady Liberty wearing a crown of rays, while the reverse is a picture of the American Eagle, perched on a rock and clutching a laurel wreath of peace in its talons. A close look will show that the word "trust" in the legend "IN GOD WE TRUST" appears this way, TRVST. At the time of the design, Art Deco was popular. Therefore deFrancisi used Art Deco style, which employed some Latin letters.
Because it commemorated the end of World War I, you might expect that the public welcomed the Peace Dollar. But it was panned by the Wall Street Journal, partly because Lady Liberty's mouth was slightly open. The Journal claimed she looked like a flapper, which at the time, was the term used to describe a loose woman.
The Unsolved Mystery
In 1964, the government under Lyndon Johnson authorized the minting of 45 million new Peace Dollars. Little is known about this project, because it was shrouded in secrecy, for reasons still unknown. One source says that they were coined near the Denver mint in a building known as the "Trolley Building." Only the day shift worked on these coins in order to help maintain the secrecy. Then one day these employees showed up to work and found the building padlocked. They were forced to sign affidavits stating that they had never worked on this project. By that time, only 316,076 of the 45 million authorized coins had been struck. And supposedly, all of those were destroyed immediately by melting them back down. The official word is that none of these coins survived, though persistent rumors imply that a few made it out of the building. Denver mint officials say they get regular calls from high-level people, such as senators, asking if they have any of these coins, adding fuel to the belief that some coins still exist.
Recently there is renewed interest in the Peace Dollars coined in the earliest years. Depending on the date and variety, some are rare, while others can be purchased for less than $10 each.
