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The very first round?
Weiss
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A few weeks ago as I was perusing eBay, I came across an ugly slug of a "so called dollar": The Pedley-Ryan Dollar, HK-825.
It was so simple that it intrigued me, so I dug a little deeper.
From SoCalledDollars.com
Pedley-Ryan & Co., Denver investment house, in order to provide a convenient medium for speculation in silver and to increase the use and popularity of silver as a medium of exchange, started a "Buy-an-Ounce-of-Silver" campaign Jan. 5, 1933.
On Jan. 5, Pedley-Ryan began its sale of round, rimless, plain-edge discs. Size of a standard U.S. dollar, they contained one ounce of silver, 430 grains 99% fine. The slugs were sold three for a dollar and Pedley-Ryan was to redeem them at prevailing market prices of silver. It was believed that thousands of investors throughout the country would purchase the "dollars" and would realize large profits when silver reached the 16 to 1 ratio hoped for by the silver bloc. Silver mining interests in Colorado and elsewhere would, in the meantime, benefit from an increased market for silver.
Sales didn't reach their anticipated goals, and the campaign ended in late summer.
So I realized that the Pedley-Ryan dollar is one of the earliest pieces of what we would today consider a true "bullion" piece. It's not like a typical "so called dollar": It wasn't meant to be spent, it wasn't made to commemorate anything. It certainly wasn't a masterwork of the coiner's craft. What it isn't is not as cool as what it is: It's the exact shape, size, and purity that we take for granted today as a silver round.
And it wasn't just that it was made to allow the small silver investor to buy a convenient unit of silver. This was 80 years ago, during the depression. There wasn't really such a thing as the small silver investor. This piece helped create that whole idea of what we think of as a "stacker". Kinda cool, huh?
It was so simple that it intrigued me, so I dug a little deeper.
From SoCalledDollars.com
Pedley-Ryan & Co., Denver investment house, in order to provide a convenient medium for speculation in silver and to increase the use and popularity of silver as a medium of exchange, started a "Buy-an-Ounce-of-Silver" campaign Jan. 5, 1933.
On Jan. 5, Pedley-Ryan began its sale of round, rimless, plain-edge discs. Size of a standard U.S. dollar, they contained one ounce of silver, 430 grains 99% fine. The slugs were sold three for a dollar and Pedley-Ryan was to redeem them at prevailing market prices of silver. It was believed that thousands of investors throughout the country would purchase the "dollars" and would realize large profits when silver reached the 16 to 1 ratio hoped for by the silver bloc. Silver mining interests in Colorado and elsewhere would, in the meantime, benefit from an increased market for silver.
Sales didn't reach their anticipated goals, and the campaign ended in late summer.
So I realized that the Pedley-Ryan dollar is one of the earliest pieces of what we would today consider a true "bullion" piece. It's not like a typical "so called dollar": It wasn't meant to be spent, it wasn't made to commemorate anything. It certainly wasn't a masterwork of the coiner's craft. What it isn't is not as cool as what it is: It's the exact shape, size, and purity that we take for granted today as a silver round.
And it wasn't just that it was made to allow the small silver investor to buy a convenient unit of silver. This was 80 years ago, during the depression. There wasn't really such a thing as the small silver investor. This piece helped create that whole idea of what we think of as a "stacker". Kinda cool, huh?
We are like children who look at print and see a serpent in the last letter but one, and a sword in the last.
--Severian the Lame
--Severian the Lame
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<< <i>The problem with the Pedley-Ryan dollars is that they are 430 grains. A troy ounce is 480 grains. Even an avoidupois ounce is 437.5 grains. I don't know what standard they were shooting at. >>
Capt'n, did you ever weigh one of these? I'm wondering if they were supposed to say 480 grains. Given their somewhat crude nature, and that some of the types of these pieces have incorrect verbiage (90% vs 99%), repunched numbers, etc., and that the last pieces in the series say "480 grains", I'm wondering if it was just a mistake.
--Severian the Lame
<< <i>
<< <i>The problem with the Pedley-Ryan dollars is that they are 430 grains. A troy ounce is 480 grains. Even an avoidupois ounce is 437.5 grains. I don't know what standard they were shooting at. >>
Capt'n, did you ever weigh one of these? I'm wondering if they were supposed to say 480 grains. Given their somewhat crude nature, and that some of the types of these pieces have incorrect verbiage (90% vs 99%), repunched numbers, etc., and that the last pieces in the series say "480 grains", I'm wondering if it was just a mistake. >>
I was at a coin club meeting where Tom Hallenbeck had an example of a "ROBBINS ON THE CORNER" Pedley-Ryan, along with a copy of an assay that Robbins had done on one before he began selling them. The weight (expressed in grams) was slightly over the equivalent of 430 grains, and the fineness was 0.904.
TD
Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you see it), the piece looks much, much better in hand than images present. It's really kind of rose colored with nice cartwheel beneath. Check out the ghosted date beneath the 1933. SCD.com says "The discs were stamped by a girl in the Pedley-Ryan office."
You can find a few on eBay right now that have been dipped to an entirely unnatural bright finish.
--Severian the Lame
So little has changed
Loves me some shiny!
<< <i>426 grains, did I get cheated?
>>
Yes.
If I'm understanding SCD.com, they were supposed to be the same size and shape of a US silver dollar. They were being sold three for a dollar, but SCD says "some motorists were using the slugs in lieu of silver dollars at automatic filling stations." I can't help but think of the movie Paper Moon and how this would have fit perfectly into that era
A US silver dollar would have been 412.5 grams of 90%. Perhaps 430 grams was as close as their tolerances would allow to still achieve the same size and shape of a US dollar?
--Severian the Lame