It’s 1925-Silver Dollars Are Not Circulating—Treasury Says Quarter Sized Coin May Be the Answer
JCH22
Posts: 245 ✭✭✭✭
More than a half century before the SBA and later Sacagawea dollars, seems Treasury thought it had the answer to having a dollar coin circulate—let’s make it smaller—bimetallic—so it can be just about the size of a quarter!
Seems the lesson of the 20-cent piece was already forgotten in 1925, as it would later be again….
Personal preference, but full-size plunk/ironman for me--- especially should I ever need to play a xylophone selection at the bar.
9
Comments
That would have been an interesting coin, I wish they would have made some.
Mr_Spud
Silver dollars were made because they were required to be made by the Pittman Act. It wasn't until 1928 that they finished making the 270ish million coins they needed to make. There was then no need to make the coins until the Silver Purchase Act of 1934, which confiscated silver bullion which was then coined into silver dollars. By then, gold was off the table.
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars • Variety Attribution
This was 3 years before the small size notes were introduced - large size paper money was still the norm. Unless folded, large size bills were too big to fit into the type of wallets that are in common use today. I think they made the correct call by shrinking the size of paper dollars rather than shrinking the size of silver dollars.
My Adolph A. Weinman signature
Thanks for sharing, simoleones, hadn't heard that term used in almost 50 years. I think the fact easterners in general trusted/ran the large banks and were well represented in the government they believed in the governments ability to support paper money . Westerners wanted some intrinsic value in their money for their labor and goods. Interesting this was 4 years before the great depression. I would have rather had silver and gold then paper.
After reading this, I googled wallets from late 1800s to see how big they were when large paper money was in use. They weren’t folding wallets, they were large flat wallets you put into coat pockets. I thought that was interesting. If they hadn’t made the bills smaller we might still be using these and fashions would be totally different today with the need for big pockets 🧐
Mr_Spud
So, basically they were trying to re-invent the Goloid Dollar?
And wallets are still evolving. They used to have some fashion and be a nice reasonably priced present to someone. The iphone will be tomorrow's primary wallet. Whole Foods was trying to get me enrolled in some finger/hand print checkout. My son's wallet is like 3" X 4" to hold credit cards and maybe a couple of folded bills.
Background on reasons for consideration--Including thirsty Model Ts:
Think a variation on the silver center cent? Ran across this article article describing Treasury experiments as follows :
My knowledge of patterns is very limited. Do not know if any were actually struck/preserved.
Reissue the susan b's 🤪
So this mystery coin was to be larger than a quarter and smaller than a half dollar. If it contained 0.25 ounces of silver ($0.324 at $1.2929/oz), it would need an additional 0.0327 ounces ($0.676 at $20.67/oz) of gold to make the value correct and 0.0307 ounces of copper for the alloy making the total weight 0.31 ounces, which is just about halfway between a quarter and half dollar. Congress would have had to approve of such a change, and while perhaps the Mint suggested it and was free to experiment, it was stomped in Congress. Making it bimetallic would have invited tons of abuse with people drilling out the gold and replacing it with something else. Banks would have had to deal with inspecting each coin for an intact gold plug.
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars • Variety Attribution
Very cool article!
That first-post article reads like a bit of bank propaganda to me.
Banks always want to push the use of banknotes over other types of money.
I've heard it stated many times that "nobody wanted silver dollars" .
That is absolutely false. Of course people wanted them - they were money.
The problem wasn't the size - it was the cost.
Back in those times people often had less than a dollar to spend,
and you could buy things you needed for a few cents.
I see quite a few Morgan Dollars that circulated heavily.
Other high-denomination coins (gold) did not circulate much at all.
The vast majority of pre-1933 gold is still in VF or better grade.
Silver dollars were also hoarded by banks.
One silver dollar contained more silver than a dollar of minor silver coins
(0.77 troy oz for the one-dollar coins vs 0.72 troy oz per dollar of minor coins).
There's another reason for this. The government often removed worn gold coins from circulation because wear had reduced their gold content, which was intrinsic to the value of these coins.
My Adolph A. Weinman signature
