1921 US coinage! Why the low mintages?

BookerTSetsrock · June 22, 2011 6:34PM

What happened to cause this? Thanks

BUFFNIXX · June 22, 2011 8:08PM

The answer is quite simple, there was a recession which caused the demand for coinage to shrink. Checkout the coin mintages in the early 1930's and you will see the same effect. There were no buffalo nickels minted in 1932 and 1933, and only a small 1.2 million mintage in 1931, because of the effects of the Great Depression.
buffnixx

keyman64 · June 22, 2011 9:42PM

I think it goes a little deeper than that although that is the basic answer. I wish RWB was here. He would be able to post a very thorough answer since he has done the research for those years.

Walkerguy21D · June 22, 2011 9:45PM

Apparently this excludes the Morgan dollars, which were produced in very substantial quantities at all three mints - a few of which actually went into circulation!

BillJones · June 22, 2011 10:28PM

<< Apparently this excludes the Morgan dollars, which were produced in very substantial quantities at all three mints - a few of which actually went into circulation! >>

Those Morgan dollars were made as a result of the Pittman Act which required the mint to melt millions of "obsolete" silver dollars and then buy silver and replace them. It was a profoundly stupid piece of legislation. The melting was a result of a large sale of silver to England. The English needed to silver to help quell political disturbances in their then crown colony, India. Therefore those silver dollars were produced because a law that was passed, not because of the needs of the economy.

The high production of silver dollars limited the mint system’s ability to produce other coins. The die producing department at the Philadelphia mint spent so much time making silver dollar dies that it could not get dies out to the branch mints. That’s why the quality of the 1922-D cents was so low and why the three varieties of 1922 Plain cents came into existence.

Banemorth · June 22, 2011 10:42PM

Thanks for that awesome bit of trivia BillJones!

Walkerguy21D · June 22, 2011 11:26PM

<< Therefore those silver dollars were produced because a law that was passed, not because of the needs of the economy. >>

True enough - that's why I stated "a few of which actually went into circulation!" I think most of the high mintage Morgan dollars produced prior
to 1921 likewise were due to laws, like the Bland-Allison Act of 1878 and the Sherman Silver Purchase Act of 1890. They weren't really needed in the
quantities produced, but rather to support an inflated silver price.

roadrunner · June 23, 2011 12:08AM

The 1920-1922 period was the first post-FED recession after the world's powers all basically came off the gold standard to fund WW1. After 5 years of inflation prices had
basically doubled. The only thing the FED did right was to do nothing from 1920-21. By not meddling the economy righted itself within about 6 months.

roadrunner

johnny9434 · June 23, 2011 4:32AM

interesting threads all

tahoe98 · June 23, 2011 6:52AM

<< 

<< Apparently this excludes the Morgan dollars, which were produced in very substantial quantities at all three mints - a few of which actually went into circulation! >>

Those Morgan dollars were made as a result of the Pittman Act which required the mint to melt millions of "obsolete" silver dollars and then buy silver and replace them. It was a profoundly stupid piece of legislation. The melting was a result of a large sale of silver to England. The English needed to silver to help quell political disturbances in their then crown colony, India. Therefore those silver dollars were produced because a law that was passed, not because of the needs of the economy.

The high production of silver dollars limited the mint system’s ability to produce other coins. The die producing department at the Philadelphia mint spent so much time making silver dollar dies that it could not get dies out to the branch mints. That’s why the quality of the 1922-D cents was so low and why the three varieties of 1922 Plain cents came into existence. >>

...very well put, bill. your comments were very informative.

tahoe98 · June 23, 2011 6:54AM

<< The 1920-1922 period was the first post-FED recession after the world's powers all basically came off the gold standard to fund WW1. After 5 years of inflation prices had
basically doubled. The only thing the FED did right was to do nothing from 1920-21. By not meddling the economy righted itself within about 6 months.

roadrunner >>

...spot on.

BryceM · June 23, 2011 7:32AM

...... not that it had all that much to do with the shortage of other denominations, but it was also the birth year of the Peace Dollar, which brought to light the difficulties associated with the orignial high-relief design. Philly cranked out over a million of them in the few days between Christmas and New Years.

DieClash · June 23, 2011 7:51AM

POTD!

ProofArtworkonCircs · June 23, 2011 2:33PM

<<Those Morgan dollars were made as a result of the Pittman Act which required the mint to melt millions of "obsolete" silver dollars and then buy silver and replace them. It was a profoundly stupid piece of legislation. The melting was a result of a large sale of silver to England. The English needed to silver to help quell political disturbances in their then crown colony, India. Therefore those silver dollars were produced because a law that was passed, not because of the needs of the economy. >>

What was so stupid about the Pittman Act? Britain needed help. We helped then. They paid a good price for our silver. The Treasury and our miners made money when the replacements were made.

BookerTSetsrock · June 23, 2011 3:14PM

yes very interesting.Thank you guys.

oreville · June 23, 2011 4:49PM

BookerTSetsrock:

This very old thread thoroughly researches the exact subject you raise. It is a MUST read! It has my thoughts on why the 1921 US coinage had so many rarities. It also has much input from RWB who bantered and argued against my postings. Despite our differences of opinion, we have great respect for each other and consider each other friends.

You will enjoy this amazing thread. I will also ttt it to save it from archives.

The little understood role the 1918-1919 Influenza Pandemic had on the famous 1921 silver coin rarities!!

BookerTSetsrock · June 23, 2011 4:55PM

thank you sir!

BookerTSetsrock · June 25, 2011 5:45PM

Wow! That was incredibly informative. thanks

ambro51 · June 25, 2011 9:50PM

Another factor which may have been involved with this was the waves of Spanish Flu which swept over the country, and the world, from 1918 to 1920.

Mortality was extreme, the importance of this pandemic has been largely forgotten over the decades, but in the U.S., about 28% of the population suffered, and 500,000 to 675,000 died. Add to this the fact that the young men of the country had already been through hell and back in that horrible war, many paying the price with their lives, others bearing scars they would carry the rest of their days.

ProofArtworkonCircs · June 26, 2011 2:30AM

<<Another factor which may have been involved with this was the waves of Spanish Flu which swept over the country, and the world, from 1918 to 1920.

Mortality was extreme, the importance of this pandemic has been largely forgotten over the decades, but in the U.S., about 28% of the population suffered, and 500,000 to 675,000 died. Add to this the fact that the young men of the country had already been through hell and back in that horrible war, many paying the price with their lives, others bearing scars they would carry the rest of their days.>>

Good point! Look at Newfoundland. They lost a tremendous amount of men in WWI. Their coinage never recovered after 1919. The next coins were cent and five cents in 1929, cent in 1936 and five and ten cents in 1938.

BillJones · June 26, 2011 3:13AM

<< What was so stupid about the Pittman Act? Britain needed help. We helped then. They paid a good price for our silver. The Treasury and our miners made money when the replacements were made. >>

The stupid part was that the government went to the expense of replacing the "obsolete" silver dollars, mostly from the 1878 to 1891 period, with over 85 million 1921 Morgan silver dollars that bore essentially the same design. Very few people wanted to use these coins so why produce them so that they could languish in government vaults like the coins the government had just melted? If we needed to ship silver to Great Brittan why not just melt the old silver dollars to obtain the metal and not replace them, or buy silver on the open market and supply that to the British?

Bear · June 26, 2011 3:15AM

Excellent thread. Most informative and interesting.

That also includes the replies. Well done indeed!

Unknown · June 26, 2011 9:37AM

This content has been removed.

ProofArtworkonCircs · June 26, 2011 1:17PM

The Currency Act of 1900 required small denomination notes under $10 to be backed by silver dollars. In addition, National Banks could only issue a limited number of $5. THe first adjustment was in 1907 when United Staes Notes of $1, $2 and $5 were authorized but only $5 were issued at that time. Restrictions on National Banks' $5 were lifted. 'In the WWI days of 1917, there were not enough small denomination notes, so series 1917 $1 and $2 United States Notes were issued. To free up silver dollars for melting, the Treasury bought silver certificates from the Federal Reserve Banks and paid for them with interest bearing paper. The Fed used this paper to back the series 1918 Federal Reserve Bank Notes of $1 and $2 denominations. The Fed could only issue these notes to replace silver certificates. So a $1 Federal Reserve Bank Note represents both the ghost of a melted silver dollar and the unborn spirit of a yet to be issued new silver dollar.

The Treasury was most anxious to resume producing silver dollars, reissue silver certificates, redeem the Fed paper and save the INTEREST payments.

1921 US coinage! Why the low mintages?

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