Coming to terms with the Peace dollar?

I?ve read the posts by more than one person on more than one occasion talking about how much they love the peace dollar. When asked, my step-father (fellow collector) will tell you that he prefers the Peace dollar to the Morgan. Sometimes I almost feel like I?m the only one who prefers the Morgan (though, based on the number of registry sets, I can't be).

There are several historical reasons why I tend to dislike the idea of the Peace dollar. I look at and see a textbook example of government waste. Over 200 million perfectly good Morgans were melted to create an artificial need to mint more Peace dollars. I look at it and I see the likely reason that there are no more 1895-P Morgans, all lost to the furnace. In conception, the coin is a circulating commemorative coin, a strange creature in American numismatic history. How many commemoratives do you see with over 100 million produced? In a historical context, the only thing that?s appropriate about the Peace dollar (at least in my opinion) is that it died with the peace. No more were minted after 1935; the second Sino-Japanese war began in 1937. Some herald this as ?the beginning of World War II in Asia.?

Aesthetically, the Peace dollar is a shallow coin. Many of the major details are very shallow and very easily lost in the event of a weak strike or wear. I?ve often thought that the Peace dollar could be beautiful in mint state, but on many other occasions it could be a real dog. I like the design, but it doesn?t hold up well.

Well, anyway, I found a coin that I actually really like just the other day at the show. It?s an NGC MS65 1923 that the dealer gave me at a nice price. He?d bought it from someone else just 2 days prior and I was basically offering him an instant turnaround on it. This is now one of the stars of my developing 20th century type set.