Options
1896 Silver Bryan So Called Dollar Information?
Glen2022
Posts: 843 ✭✭✭✭
Does anyone have information on this coin? Its value? Bryan was the Democratic nominee for president in 1896 loosing to McKinley. He advocated using silver rather than gold for coinage, among other things. Could this be a campaign piece?
Historic items like this are just one of the reasons numismatics is so interesting to me.
Thanks in advance.
0
Comments
Got a picture?
@Glen2022... A picture, obverse and reverse, would be a big help. Cheers, RickO
I don't know anything about these but when I did a search on the title several different ones (different HK numbers) come up. Some locations have some information (weight, %, HK#...) with a picture. I saw a half dozen different HK# and there are probably many more.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=2YNufnS_kf4 - Mama I'm coming home ...................................................................................................................................................................... RLJ 1958 - 2023
I don't have a picture, sorry. But one is being offered at this Sunday's GC auction in the Private, territorial and other section. Pictures are there.
Photos please. Is it an 1896 Bryan $ Gorham Dollar, by any chance?
Jim
When a man who is honestly mistaken hears the truth, he will either quit being mistaken or cease to be honest....Abraham Lincoln
Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.....Mark Twain
Its number is HK-779. Is there some way to bring pictures from the GC auction to this forum without violating and rules of the forum or copyright laws?
bump
You could provide a link to the auction.
There are many Bryan dollar varieties. They are divided into two broad categories, the comparative pieces which are made of coin silver and the satirical pieces, which were most often made of “pot metal” or lead. The satirical pieces often have grotesque images resembling a Morgan Dollar and are large and heavy. The comparative pieces often show how heavy a silver dollar needed to be to be worth a dollar.
I have collected these pieces for years. Bryan’s proposal was to coin virtually unlimited amounts of silver coins using the assumption that 16 parts of silver were equal in value to one part of gold. The real number was close to double that back in 1896.
Although Bryan didn’t fully understand the mechanics or dangers to what he was proposing and admitted as much, the results would have been massive inflation. Farmers, who were in debt would have been able to repay their loans with cheaper dollars. The overall ramifications for the monetary health of the dollar and emerging U.S. economy would have quite negative.
Revised to say, HK-779 is a comparative piece in silver. It has nine mines of text on the obverse and a cartwheel, which is the diameter of a silver dollar on the reverse. It took me a couple of minutes to recall that HK numbers relate to the So-Called Dollars book.
I wish I could post pictures, but my house is torn up with a rehab. Maybe later.
I was curious about this, never having seen one. Here's the GC auction link https://www.greatcollections.com/Coin/1201424/1896-Silver-Bryan-Dollar-Tiffany-amp-Co-So-Called-Dollar-HK-779-PCGS-MS-62
The most common pieces were made by the Gotham Silver Company. Spaulding issued so too, but the Tiffany & Co. pieces are the scarcest and most highly prized.
Can you post photos of some of your examples?? Thanks for the info. A great example of the intersection of history and numismatics.
Here is Gorham piece from the 1896 campaign. One of the owners personalized it which drops the value in some circles but not others. This piece is "common" as these things go. There are fewer of them than there are 1893-S Morgan Dollars.
Here is a piece by Spaulding. You will note that it is very common in style with the Gorham piece, which makes me think that dies were from the same hand. This is scarcer variety.
Here is an 1896 Tiffany piece. This is quite scarce and some Tiffany varieties bring strong money.
Bryan tried to make free silver an issue in the 1900 presidential campaign, but the economy had gotten much better, and he couldn't get much traction with it. The 1900 pieces are scarcer. Here is a 1900 Gorham piece.
This 1900 piece is the same size as a Morgan Dollar. The variety catalogs say that it is "common," but I have not found that to be true. Maybe I have not looked in the right places.
There are Tiffany pieces that are attributed to 1908 when Bryan ran for president for the third time, but spotting them is tough. It has to do with the size and length of the edge lettering. The faces of the 1908 and, they say 1910, vintage pieces are the same as the earlier ones. This is one of those later pieces. I don't have a picture of the edge letting handy.
And here is one of the Tiffany "wagon wheel" varieties. These pieces are scarce and bring strong bids in auctions.
And here is one of the many satire pieces which is made out of lead.
Hopefully these loaded in correct order. If not, sorry…..
A: The year they spend more on their library than their coin collection.
A numismatist is judged more on the content of their library than the content of their cabinet.
Bill Jones:
I noted you collect a wide diversity of coins: Roman, British, political medals, etc. It must give you great pleasure and sense of accomplishment. I know it took some time to post all the pictures that you posted. I was vaguely aware of the "so-called" dollars and since your posts have looked into them a bit. Wow! What a field. Almost any topic is included. One must be very dedicated to pursue "so-called" dollars. I think the satire pieces are interesting. Never knew they existed.
Thanks for taking the time to respond.
BustDMs:
Thanks to you for adding some additional examples. I particularly liked the United Snakes of America item.
Bill Smith
The example on GC, MS62, Tiffany & Co. sold tonight (7/31/22) for $705 + buyers premium.
Just about everything you need to know about the Bryan campaign is summarized on this political cover:
.
Here is a link to the image to see it larger for easier reading:
designscomputed.com/coin_pics/Bryan_envelope.jpg
.
Thank you. Very enlightening.
By the way, i have seen some of your work on Ebay and also on your web site. Very beautiful.
Got a picture?
Glen, thanks for posting, not many collectors out there. Been closet collecting since the mid 90’s. I’ll post some rarities this weekend.
If Bryan’s free silver proposal had been enacted, the money supply would have been greatly expanded and significant inflation would have been the results. Yes, numerical wages would have increased, but inflation would have offset or even more than offset those gains.
Those who were holding debt instruments, bonds and mortgages, would suffered massive losses. They would have been repaid with inflated dollars, which have disrupted capital markets. Those who were in debt would have benefited, but how would they have dealt with the inflationary economy in its wake?
Internationally, U.S. gold coins would have been like they prior to 1834. Their melt value would have exceeded their face value, which might well have made them useless for international trade.
S-808/9 explained it best.
Unlisted piece, 110mm and 446gms. Bronze
Unique 100 series silver. 19mm
16-1 iron puzzle
I generally agree. But note that, even without free coinage of silver, holders of fixed-rate long-term debt have suffered significant purchasing power losses on numerous occasions since 1900 (such as 2021 to present).
And gold coins were hoarded anyway, even without any "inflation" resulting from Free Coinage of Silver. Starting in the late 1920s, gold coins were hoarded to the extent that they did not generally circulate. European countries (especially France) hoarded gold coins because they realized that the Gold Standard was being massively cheated upon during the "Roaring" 1920s.
Had free coinage of silver been enacted, perhaps we would not have suffered a Great Depression in 1929-1938 ?
Free coinage of silver would have benefited silver miners and states where silver is mined (such as my state of Colorado).
The US Government didn't want to pay silver producers the potential face value of the silver when in coin form. The US Treasury would rather buy raw silver at the prevailing market price, which was significantly less than the face value of the same amount of silver when coined. So that is exactly what they did. In 1934 President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 6814 which required all silver bullion bars in the United States be surrendered to the US Treasury so that it could be coined. For this surrendered silver, the US Treasury paid the prevailing market price for raw silver, not the face value of the coined silver made from it.
Executive Order 6814 was cancelled in 1938. But the Silver Tax persisted until 1963. All profits from any silver bullion transaction from 1934-1963 were taxed at a hefty 50% rate.
Had Free Coinage of Silver been enacted, the free market price of raw silver would have risen dramatically to approach the coined face value. Since the United States was a significant silver producer, that could have benefited the country as a whole in international trade.
This philatelic cover explains Bryan's point of view:
@dcarr
I like how Washington and Bryan have the same exact face, just a different haircut. The comparison of William Jennings Bryan to George Washington is a stretch.
I think he looks alot more like Ted Cruz, personally lol
Dead Cat Waltz Exonumia
"Coin collecting for outcasts..."
@dcarr, there was an excellent argument from increasing the money supply in the early to mid 1890s. The trouble was the government did not have the monetary machinery it has today. The government did not have the system of open market operations which have had a Federal Reserve type system to buy bonds, which would have injected more money into the economy. (A moderate increase in the money supply.)
The country was on the gold standard, and that was messed up by the stupid Sherman Silver Purchase Act of 1890. Those who sold silver to the government were paid with notes that could be redeemed in gold or silver. The silver producers may have loved their product, but they weren’t stupid. They redeemed the notes for gold which lowered the government’s gold reserves to what was perceived to be at dangerously low levels. That made the Panic of 1893 worse. The real cause of the Panic was the bankruptcy of a major railroad (The Reading Railroad as I remember.) and other businesses.
The old system of converting silver and coins to coins for free was unworkable because bimetallism is unworkable. There is no natural economic law that can set a fixed ratio between the prices of gold an silver. People used to think the 16 parts of silver were equal in value to one part of gold. That may have been true for one point in time, but it was only temporary.
The only reasonable policy was for the government to buy silver at the market price and convert it into coins. “Free silver” given the price of silver in the 1890s was an invitation to a disaster waiting to happen.