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1862 - Mint Bureau paying $1.22-1/2 for silver

RogerBRogerB Posts: 8,852 ✭✭✭✭✭

An interesting Treasury Circular showing amounts paid in subsidiary silver coins for bullion and foreign coins.

Comments

  • Timbuk3Timbuk3 Posts: 11,658 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Wow, I wish I could buy those items at that prices today !!! ;)

    Timbuk3
  • rickoricko Posts: 98,724 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Very interesting...@RogerB.....Why were no British Crowns listed for exchange?? Cheers, RickO

  • ConnecticoinConnecticoin Posts: 12,805 ✭✭✭✭✭

    During the Bryan "Free Silver" days it was down to about 50 cents, no?

  • RogerBRogerB Posts: 8,852 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @ricko said:
    Very interesting...@RogerB.....Why were no British Crowns listed for exchange?? Cheers, RickO

    I don't know. Congress approved acceptance of British, French, Spanish and Mexican coins for U.S. payments, but British silver is not mentioned. U.S. silver dollars were valued at about $1.08 from the Philadelphia Mint whenever people requested them. (Some large depositors of silver routinely requested payment in subsidiary silver coins plus a few thousand standard silver dollars. Presumably the dollars were for export at a rate above $1.08. This might also help explain the scarcity of some seated dollar dates.)

  • RogerBRogerB Posts: 8,852 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @Connecticoin said:
    During the Bryan "Free Silver" days it was down to about 50 cents, no?

    Silver hit 32-cents per fine ounce in the 1930s.

  • BillDugan1959BillDugan1959 Posts: 3,821 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited October 30, 2018 10:53AM

    From records of FRB STL:

    @Connecticoin I was interested myself.

    Look at that surge when we got into WWI (1917)!

  • RogerBRogerB Posts: 8,852 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited October 30, 2018 12:58PM

    RE: "Look at that surge when we got into WWI (1917)!"
    Yep. And it collapsed even faster after Britain began dumping sterling silver coins, and other countries followed. There was a short spurt of US Congress interest in debasing our silver coins, but the inflated price fell faster than Congress could act.

    Three months after the date on the circular, the Mint was offered silver at $1.24-1.25 per standard (0,900 fine) ounce. The Philadelphia Mint had only about $20,000 in fine silver on hand and this was needed for parting gold bullion, so could not be used for coinage.

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