History of the US Mint 1885 with info on the 1804 Dollar

2windy2fish

I actually own 2 copies of this book!
Thought some might find this interesting reading, i had never heard that the vast majority of the 1804 Dollar mint age was sent to China for trade and lost in a ship wreck.
If y’all find this worthwhile i’ll add a few pages once in a while, it fascinating really…

Manifest_Destiny

Cool book!

Crypto

Thanks for sharing. Goes to show you how lore is ever present in our hobby. I wonder when exactly the originals were attributed to the presentation sets and the bags put on a ship faded. So many myths are still present.

2windy2fish

@Crypto Right? Coinfacts states that they weren’t made until 1834! And also lists them as proofs…
That would be a hell of a ship wreck treasure to recover!

RobertScotLover

Cool reading, much appreciated

lilolme

There has been a lot of research, study or other into the 1804 dollar and including books on it. This HA sale catalog write up appears to have much of the information.
Go down to Origin of the 1804 Dollar

https://coins.ha.com/itm/proof-early-dollars/1804-1-original-pr62-pcgs-secure-pcgs-6907-/a/1276-4003.s?ic4=ListView-ShortDescription-071515

As far as when this was mostly known, I find a write up from Kenneth Bressett stating that in 1962 when the book The Fantastic 1804 Dollar was being sent to the publisher that they stopped the printing when the King of Siam Set was 'rediscovered' in England. Bressett wrote:
"Over the next few weeks Newman and I worked feverishly on chapter VIII and IX, The Diplomatic Gift Background and The Origin of the 1804 Originals. The Siam set was a wonderful addition to our book and proved once and for all when and why these coins had originally been minted...."

Note: they had much more information than the above.

Here is another article from 1960 but has a reprint of an 1891 American journal of numismatics writing. The Newman 1960 writing (at the top) makes note of the discrepancies of the past. In the 1891 writing (towards the bottom) it is stating that the original 1804 dollars were struck from original dies in the year of their date. Or so they thought at the time (1891).
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