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Philadelphia Mint silver dollar vaults - 1922
RogerB
Posts: 8,852 ✭✭✭✭✭
As promised in another thread, here is a composite table of silver dollars held by the Philadelphia Mint in 1922 and their vault & cage locations. Equivalent tables likely existed for all the mints during the 1890s and later. Several years ago I though a table for Philadelphia, 1897 had been located - this would have shown 1895-P silver dollars - but it was a dead end.
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Thanks Roger.... Wow... that is a lot of silver.... I wonder how much survived the melting pots....I know there are still millions out there... Cheers, RickO
All of these are post-Pittman. Most later melting was of worn or damaged dollars. It wasn't until after June 1934 that melting a silver dollar also required withdrawal from circulation on one paper silver certificate.
After the Pittman melting the Treasury did withdraw an equivalent face value in Silver Certificates, which were replaced with Federal Reserve Bank Notes to keep the money supply up. Once enough of the 1921 Morgan dollars and the 1921-on Peace dollars were struck, the Treasury began issuing the new Series 1923 Silver Certificates backed by them.
The question is, was the Treasury REQUIRED to withdraw the Silver Certificates formerly backed by the Pittman dollars, or did they just do it because they thought it was a good idea?
It was required. The authorization act stated that silver certificates had to be backed dollar-for-dollar by silver dollars. The Act of June 1934 changed that by permitting silver bullion to be monetized as if it were coined silver dollars. (This is also the meaning of the term "monetized;" not to be confused with Treasury's later misuse in relation to 1933 double eagles. Just another example of the importance of correct language use.)