CaptHenway

On 8/16/2022 at 5:13 PM, RWB said:

The document's from the first 20 years of the 19th century suggest that delivery time for halves was several weeks shorter than for any other silver denomination. By requesting halves, depositors got their cash sooner rather than later. I'll pull up a couple of examples. Here's a quick one ----

April 27, 1829

 The wish of depositors generally is to have their bullion coined with the least practicable delay, which is most effectually accomplished in the larger coins. An attention to their accommodation has been at all times deemed important, since the Government sends no gold or silver to the Mint. It was in this view, specially enjoined in a letter of the 13^th June 1805, Mr. Mr. Jefferson to my predecessor for his guidance. The coinage of dollars was, however, suspended in 1806 by direction of the President under date of May 1 of that year, founded on a suggestion from the former U.S. Bank, that dollars were more liable to be exported than half dollars. This was referred to in the annual report of January 1, 1827 with an expression of an opinion in favor of this policy. Under the influence of these considerations, the determination [or] what coins shall be executed from time to time, devolves on the Director of the Mint, and is regulated with reference to the pressure of the supply of bullion, and the state of the machinery at any given time, the denominations less than half dollars being reserved for periods of a less copious supply.

[Sam Moore to N. Sanford, MC]

I wonder how effective the discontinuance of striking dollar coins was in discouraging the export of coined silver. I understand that if both dollars and half dollars were available in unlimited supply the exporters would choose dollars because they were faster to count, but once American dollars became unavailable you could hardly expect importers/exporters to simply give up doing business. If they had to ship twice as many half dollars as they would have dollars, why not?

I wonder if the comments about the ductility of the silver alloys and the unsuitability of some of them for striking smaller silver coins wasn't a small lie on the Mint's part to justify them striking mostly the more efficient Half Dollars? Two Half Dollars had to cost less to manufacture than ten Dimes or 20 Half Dimes.

I would love to see some wealthy philanthropist underwrite the cost of a program to do elemental analysis on hundreds, if not thousands, of pre-1853 U.S. gold and silver coins. Obviously so long as the required gold or silver content was there they did not care very much what else made up the alloy, with the exception that the alloy in the gold coinage had to include some silver up to 5% of the gross weight.

I vote thin rolled stock.

The problem is not with YOU.

"Fuh-leece Navidad!"

I still say genuine error.

I looked at it again and I see ZERO reasons to doubt it.

Exactly!

I am in agreement with David Lange. I cannot condemn it from these pictures. I think that it does need to be looked at by somebody with Authentication credentials.

I think it is a genuine off-center error. The scratches were probably caused by it getting caught in a counting machine because the strike bent it, and some workman used a nail to dig it out of the machine.

I suspect that at the time a long distance call was a lot more expensive than a telegram.

Interesting that he calls it a "silver dollar."

Damaged and polished. At least it is not currently on fire!

On 7/5/2022 at 1:34 PM, RWB said:

If he rowed that far for a box of stale scones, he didn't deserve any change.

And what about the tea?

This cli p from Sept 1, 1870 comparing a new Canadian quarter and a US quarter should answer your question. (The US coin was worth more.)

Yes, but what would the person at the cash box do? I grew up in Detroit at a time that the U.S. Dollar and the Canadian Dollar were very close to par, and you could spend either locally at par, including the coinage. I even had the Whitman blue folders for Canadian coins up through 25 Cents. Then a new Canadian government came into power somewhere in the 1960's and instituted some economic policies that drove the Canadian Dollar below 95 cents US. The corner candy store put up a sign that a Canadian quarter was now worth 23 cents, a Canadian dime 9 cents, and a Canadian nickel 4 cents. Cents were still even because they could not be discounted.

And I am curious if all those people melting down .900 fine coin silver bothered to throw a little pure silver into the melt to bring it up to .925 Sterling levels, or if they just figured that the customers would not be able to tell the difference.

On 7/6/2022 at 7:27 AM, RWB said:

This use of dollars extended well into the Morgan dollar period and was occasionally mentioned in silversmith's ads. Mint correspondence also refers to requests to buy dollars from the Mint or banks by jewelers, etc.

In a period when silver and gold were circulating money, they were also inexpensive sources of raw metal for any business or profession using them.

If a silversmith did need a small quantity of silver and was OK with using a ,900 fine U.S. coin or two, by using a silver dollar he got approximately 7% more silver than if he used two half dollar. Hence the preference for dollars.

This assumes of course that either option was easily available at face value in exchange for paper dollars, which was not always the case. I'm not sure that any silver coins were available at face value in exchange for paper in 1869.

So if one of my ancestors rowed across the river from Detroit to Windsor in 1863 and went to Ye Olde Tim Horton's to buy a box of scones that cost 25 Cents and he presented a U.S. quarter in payment, would the transaction be even or would he owe a little more or a little less?

Just remove "circulation" and yuou should be OK.

On 6/28/2022 at 12:50 PM, FlyingAl said:

None. Those proofs are made by taking a circulation pair of dies, acid dipping them to etch the surface, and then polishing the fields. Of course there are nuances to what I've said, but that's the general idea. I also took the liberty of not using the modern method of sandblasting the dies, which in my opinion ruins the finished coin. I've developed a general distaste to the modern proofs after I discovered 1936-64 CAM and DCAM proofs, which have a frost that just looks natural. 

If I might toss out two-thirds of a quibble here, what do you mean by "a circulation pair of dies?" There are certain Proof issues where dies were made specifically for the Proof coinage from slightly modified artwork. These do occasionally turn up on a business strike coin, to the delight of cherrypickers everywhere.

TD

On 6/26/2022 at 8:37 AM, RWB said:

...but is the weight correct? The ad doesn't mention weight.

Your weight will increase accordingly!

I think you might want to take another look at Assertion #5.

Oops. My bad. I meant the 1891 Seated Liberty Half, with the John Reich eagle from 1807.

Not the Barber.

On 6/13/2022 at 8:02 AM, FlyingAl said:

This can be true for design, but I tried to go deeper. I think I have found, based on solid conjecture, that the origination of the 1875 patterns is entirely different than those of 1876, thus changing how we as numismatists think of them. I have been trying to obtain mint documents to prove this, and all I need is something mentioning Barber creating the "Sailor Head" design for a 20-cent piece of 1875. This would prove it, but of course the information may not exist so for now it remains (in my opinion) strong conjecture. 

The reasoning that I think these patterns need to be distinguished from each other is really threefold:

1. The neckerchief is gone. Without that the bust bears no resemblance to a sailor, I'd liken this to calling the "Schoolgirl" patterns the same as Morgan's coiled hair goloid dollar pattern (J-1631 to J-1634) just because the hair changed slightly. The designs are essentially the same with the difference being the hair is up rather than down, but the coiled hair patterns have no resemblance of a schoolgirl. As such, they aren't called "Schoolgirl" patterns. I think the same needs to be done with the 1876-77 patterns. Yes, the design is similar, but if the nickname makes no sense, why should we keep it? 

2. Since so little is known about patterns, nicknames mean a lot to the average numismatist. They would, in general, group together these patterns in origination and design based on the nickname. This makes a lot of what is thought about the patterns of 1876-77 false, as they have their own unique story. To essentially make that disappear is really somewhat of a tragedy. Who heard of Barber's attempt to produce a dollar design? The answer would be very few, because that attempt has been largely grouped in with the 1875 patterns that have nothing to do with that process, and as such the history to go along with the dollars of 1876-77 (which is unique form that of 1875) disappears. Perhaps the removal of the nickname could change that. 

3. It clears up a lot of what is known about the 1875 patterns as well. It seems that all but a very small group of descriptions of these coins consists of nothing more than a mention of design, and nothing about the creation of it. We know the story of the 1876-77 patterns. Now with some information, I think I can reasonably conclude that I have found the origin of the 1875 patterns, and it is special. It shows some history of the twenty-cent piece and it shows some information about William Barber. This story also gets confused when it gets looped in with the patterns of 1876-77, because then you have conflicting stories. 
 

Of course, collectors may just not care, which would make the point of my article moot. In any way, I feel that perhaps it may help someone understand the history. 

I didn't quite follow this, the designs are entirely different as one eagle is perched and one is a heraldic eagle. The inscriptions are different as well, and if you were arguing they were the same I don't think you'd be making a rational argument. Was there a typo here somewhere? I agree with the half union point, however. The key there is that they were all created with the same purpose and reasoning behind them. 

On the 1807 Half Dollar, I specified the Capped Bust version, not the earlier Draped Bust, Heraldic Eagle type struck that year.

I look forward to reading your article, and I hope that I helped in some small way, but just to play devil's advocate, the 1875 head and the 1876 head are more similar than different.

Look at the reverses of the 1807 Capped Bust half and the 1891 Barber Half. One can reasonably argue that they are the same design with differences in inscriptions. At the other end of the difference scale, the two different $50 Half Union obverses are certainly the same design, even though they have slight differences in ornamentation.

Your opinion that the 1876 and 1877 designs are not "Sailor Heads" is a perfectly valid opinion, but others may have other opinions.