Were there any business striike 1895 Morgans?

majorbigtime

A recent Coin World article said the 12,000 reported business strikes were probably an accounting error. In the past, the theory was that they all were melted.

No bona fide business strike 1895 has ever surfaced (no pun intended), and this tends to support the accounting error theory. If they were coined, a few assay pieces probably would have survived (witness the 1876 CC twenty cent piece).

Do you beleive any business strike 1895 Morgans were struck?

morgannut2

Yes, but with 1894 dies-- Plus any '95 dated business strikes would have just reused the proof dies with one strike instead of more.

Newmismatist

<< <i>Do you beleive any business strike 1895 Morgans were struck? >>



Well, the Mint struck 12,000 Silver dollars in 1895, No one knows if they were dated 1895, and IF they were, they were probably melted in 1919 when the US Treasury melted 270,000,000 Silver dollars under the Pittman Act to be sent to the far East as bullion. But we'll never know because the Treasury didn't inventory what dates they melted. For years, everyone thought that most of the 1903-Os had been melted, big surprise when bags of them turned up in the early 60's, maybe someday those 12 bags of 1895s will turn up too!

lloydmincy

Just because none have surfaced doesn't mean they didn't exist. Proper mint controls would have all of them melted, if they were supposed to be. Unlike other coins/years that "escaped", like the STOLEN 1933 double eagles. (NONE should have existed today).

DennisH

No, I don't believe any were ever struck. I'm inclined to go along with the accounting conspiracy theory on this one.

Struntz

Dave Bowers printed an article in his in-house magazine several years ago, I think by Mark Borkhart but I'm not sure, that quoted several letters from the Mint's archives that showed that all requests from collectors for business strike 1895 dollars were returned unfilled. As it was standard operating procedure to fill such orders back then, the logical conclusion is that no business strike 1895 dollars were ever coined. The 12,000 pieces recorded could have been leftover 1894's cleared out in 1895.
Tom DeLorey

Conder101

I've also seen the article that Tom mentions, and along with the letters requesting examples of the 1895 dollar it also pictures the coiners record book which lists the 12,000 dollars, but it lists them with a red * and at the botom of the page is the notation that these coins were dated 1894.

So I would say that the 1895 business strikes never existed since even the mint report that is supposed to show that they were made clearly states itself that they were not 1895's.

edited to correct a spelling error.

kranky

Well, with that level of original documention, it's definitely time to get the reference books to delete them from their mintage numbers.