Trade Dollar question...

jmj3esq

How did all these chop marked Trade Dollars make their way back to America?

stealer

<< <i>How did all these chop marked Trade Dollars make their way back to America? >>


I believe the majority of the reason is because of collectors going to China to purchase large hoards, but I may be wrong. After the United States demonetized them, they were only offering to let citizens trade in un-chopped Trade Dollars for a new silver dollar. Trade Dollars did continue to circulate a fair amount even into the 40's.

DDR

In Volume I of his Silver Dollar and Trade Dollar Encyclopedia, Q. David Bowers devotes several pages to stories of U.S. coin dealers (including his partner James F. Ruddy) going to Hong Kong in the 1950s - 1980s and purchasing Trade Dollars, many/most of which were chop marked.

crypto79

There were two great repatriotization waves:

Late 1870s-mid 1880s when the price if silver crashed internationally and merchants shipped them back to try and get a dollar per out of them as silver fell to 60some cents per. This is one of the reasons why they were demonitized. This left a bad taste with the public and there was a series of recalls in the mid 1880 where you could exchange them for silver dollars. The recalled trades were only accpted if they were not chopped and the coins were turned into millions of Morgan dollars by the government who operated at a profit as the trade dollars weighed more than the silver dollars. These recalls are one of the main reasons the series is so scarce save for a few common dates.

The 2nd as DDR stated came form the Chinese merchants that saved bags and bags of them that made their way to American dealers over the 1950-80s. Many of these ended up cleaned before coming back.

COALPORTER

I have read that many came home with GIs from WW2, Koria and Viet-Nam wars.

COALPORTER

I do have a book with photos of solders with machine guns (at ease) looking
at piles of trade dollars just dumped onto the dirt ground.