The beginnings of Morgan dollar production - March 1, 1878.

RogerB

Following is the text from Philadelphia Mint Superintendent Pollock's letter regarding the beginning pr standard silver dollar production in March 1878. Note that this is not striking the coins, but involves preparing planchets in anticipation of manufacturing the coins in large quantities. This might be of special interest to Morgan variety collectors.

golden

Very cool!

CaptHenway

Interesting that Carson got dies ahead of San Francisco, though logical as they were in a silver mining district as opposed to the gold mining district of California.

ricko

The memo sure conveys the apparent urgency mandated from the top... Cheers, RickO

messydesk

@ricko said:
The memo sure conveys the apparent urgency mandated from the top... Cheers, RickO

Indeed. And this urgency is reflected in the fact that from Pollock's conversation with Morgan on March 1 to the first striking on March 11. hubs were finished and the first working dies were made. It took as many as 10 impressions with a working hub to make a working die. 10 days isn't a lot of time to get that all done.

Rittenhouse

Well that answers a question I just had in a discussion of the 1849 DE with JD, Saul Teichman, Kevin Flynn, and others. The Mint attempted to rush the process, getting approval on Dec 22 or 23 and when a test run of 1849 DE's was struck on Dec 24, they found the obverse relief was too high to strike up. The run was melted and new dies were made in 1850 with a much lower relief. I had wondered how long the Mint kept playing with fire attempting to go from design approval to production striking in such short periods of time. Here we are almost 30 years later and they still haven't learned that they were setting themselves up for failure. Of course, we are talking about the gov't, and apparently failure has been an option for them even that far back.

messydesk

@Rittenhouse said:
Well that answers a question I just had in a discussion of the 1849 DE with JD, Saul Teichman, Kevin Flynn, and others. The Mint attempted to rush the process, getting approval on Dec 22 or 23 and when a test run of 1849 DE's was struck on Dec 24, they found the obverse relief was too high to strike up... Here we are almost 30 years later and they still haven't learned that they were setting themselves up for failure.

30 years? Heck, fast forward to 1921 and the same thing plays out with the Peace dollars at the end of the year.

StrikeOutXXX

Seems some of that "Urgency" - at least for Philadelphia can be explained down towards the bottom. Seems CC/SF mints didn't get rolling until at least July.

The report shows minor silver coins stopped Feb 28th, which coincides with Roger's OP Letter Dated March 1st stating "Communication of yesterday". Seems that communication put everything on hold, and Morgan Dollar preparation as the sole focus.

Add to that the letter posted ATS on March 12th 1878 saying the 1st 303 Morgans were done and being shipped out, and the next day on the 13th, 10,000 were ready - they fast tracked everything for sure.

==============

From the 1878 Mint Directors Report:

"SILVER PURCHASES.
The Director being charged with the supervision of the details of the purchases of silver.bullion made by the Secretary of the Treasury, it is proper that a brief account of the purchases should be submitted in this
report.

Purchases of silver bullion were made during the year under the provisions of the specie-resumption act and also the act to authorize the coinage of the standard silver dollar. Those made under the former act
were for the requirements of the fractional coinage, and under the latter for the coinage of the dollar.

Purchases of bullion for the fractional coinage were made from time to time during the year until February 28, 1878, and amounted to •5,984,693.64 fine ounces, at a cost of $7,114,548.69, an average of 118.879 cents per ounce fine. The London rate for silver bullion during this period averaged. 54.3107 pence per ounce, British standard, equivalent to 119.055 cents per ounce fine.

The total amount of silver bullion purchased by the government for coinage into fractional coins from January, 1875, to February 28, 1878, at which time this coinage was intermitted, was 31,603,905.87 fine ounces, for which $37,571,148.04 Avas paid in gold coin, an average of 118.881 cents per ounce fine. The average London rate during the above-mentioned period was 54.674 pence, the parity of which is 119.911 cents per ounce fine.

At the date of the authorization of the standard silver dollar there was on hand in the Treasury and mints in fractional silver coins $6,253,624.76^ and the demand for these coins being light, this amount was regarded as sufficient to meet any probable demand for some time to come, and the coinage of fractional silver was temporarily suspended and preparations made to work the mints to their full capacity in striking the dollar.

Purchasing silver for the dollar coinage was commenced in March, and continued from time to time as advantageous offers of the same were made, or as the mints required additional bullion for their current work.

The total amount purchased for the dollar coinage up to September 30 was 17,925,701.99 fine ounces, at a cost to the government of $21,057,-369.17, an average cost of 117.47. cents per ounce fine. The average London rate during this period was 53.1208 pence, which, calculated at the par of exchange, is equivalent to 116.447 cents per ounce fine. In arriving at the parity of the London rate in all purchases that have been made, the price of sterling exchange is an element in the calculation. The average rate for sterling exchange from March to September, inclusive, was $4.88, at which rate the parity of 53.1208 pence is 116.77 cents per ounce fine.

At the coining rate for standard silver dollars, $1.16 4/11 per standard ounce, the above amount purchased will produce $23,176,665.19.

All silver is purchased at its gold value, and of the amount paid for silver bullion for the dollar coinage $7,672,792.95 was paid in gold coin, and $13,384,576.22 in standard silver dollars.

_Soon after the passage of the act authorizing the coinage of the standard silver dollar, and an attempt being made to procure the requisite bullion for its coinage at the mints on the Pacific coast, it was found that the producers and dealers would not sell silver to the government at the equivalent of the London rate, but demanded in addition thereto an amount equal to the cost of bringing it from London and laying it down in San Francisco. These terms being deemed exorbitant were rejected, and arrangements were immediately made to bring the capacity of the Mint at Philadelphia to its maximum with a view to meet the provisions of law, which required two millions of silver dollars to be coined in each month, and the available supplies of silver from domestic sources being entirely insufficient for the coinage of this amount, the foreign market was indirectly resorted to and an amount sufficient to meet the requirements of law secured. _

**In.July, 1878, the principal holders of bullion on the Pacific coast receded from their position and accepted the equivalent of the London rate, at which price sufficient bullion was purchased to employ the mints at San Francisco and Carson on the coinage of the dollar. All purchases since made have been of domestic bullion. **

RogerB

To clear up a few confusing things --- The Mint Bureau had been working on a new standard silver dollar design since before 1876 - that was part of the motivation in brining Morgan from Britain: to get Linderman's "ideal head of Liberty." The Morgan design was declared the better over Barber's in December 1877 because the relief was lower. However, A. L. Snowden was asked to critique the patterns and found multiple things with which to disagree. This dragged on into February even though Linderman (and President Hayes) knew the silver dollar legislation would be approved. By the last week of February, Morgan was still tinkering to please Snowden and Linderman, hence the urgency to complete hubs.

As to 1921 Peace dollar. Approval for a new design and limited competition was not given until November. Details are in Renaissance of American Coinage 1916-1921.

There is also additional information recently located about the 1849 dollar and double eagle designs, but the data have not been analyzed as yet. (I have not examined the print edition of Moran's book recently published.)

RogerB

One other factor to consider -- while the new standard silver dollar was being refined, Morgan and Barber were also being pestered with demands for Goloid coin samples by the House Coinage Committee Chairman, Alexander Stephens. These required completely new designs/master dies/hubs/working dies, and everything else necessary to please the Committee and Mr. Hubbell's ego. (Details in a future issue of Journal of Numismatic Research.)

coindeuce

From the first Morgan Dollar dies used at Philadelphia on March 11,1878:
https://coins.ha.com/itm/morgan-dollars/1878-8tf-1-ms62-ngc-cac-vam-9-r7/a/1190-33520.s

RogerB

Thanks. Do you know where the catalog quote came from?

coindeuce

The text of the Heritage catalog listing attributes the quote regarding VAM 9 to the wiki-space site vamworld.com.
I would have to ask an admin. from vamworld.com if they can reveal the source.

RogerB

Thanks! I'll check with "Messydesk" - he should know.