RWB

DE had two practical functions: 1) convenient export of gold and, 2) required backing for gold certificates. Very few ever circulated as money.

There is no reliable reference for these private test pieces and no properly documented guide to GM's experiments with the coin roller. Prices are usually fairly low due to lack of information and limited interest.

Common Philadelphia Mint nickels. Worth about 50-cents each if you can find a buyer for well-used nickels. Collectors of Buffalo nickels want much higher grades than these.

Hubs and dies for 1917-date coinage were prepared in 1916 as was normally done. Working dies would have been shipped in December. Once Treasury decided to suspend gold coin manufacture, all dies would have been returned and destroyed along with the dated hubs. The only US gold dated 1917 was McKinley's commemorative dollar.

Difficult to tell without really sharp, high magnification photos. Difference between a natural chip and accidental damage would be in texture and edge irregularities. This is a common die variety so there should be many examples around for review.

Mania -- Here's the 2019 press release which will tell you more about the content. Press Release For Release September 12, 2019 Seneca Mill Press LLC proudly announces the publication of the long anticipated book Girl on the Silver Dollar, by Roger W. Burdette. It was a time when any female who modeled for an artist was lumped with immoral and fallen women. The public morality enjoyed praise for allegorical female figures in painting, architecture and sculpture, but heaped collective scorn if the same creation was identified as a specific woman. Anna W. Williams, known to her friends as “Nannie,” was caught in this hypocritical morality. She left no written expression of its emotional effects, but we know that she and her friends denied the accusations. To do anything else would have meant personal humiliation and ruin. Within a year of the first release of George Morgan’s silver dollar design in 1878, Philadelphia newspapers were speculating about identity of the woman who posed for the Liberty portrait. Speculative reports were that a local woman, Anna W. Williams, had modeled for Morgan and it was her profile depicted on the new coin. Reporters interviewed Miss Williams and some of her friends, but could find no definitive answer – so they invented stories based on a few scarce facts. Curiously, one newspaper, at the close of a lengthy article, admitted that the dollar’s Miss Liberty did not resemble Miss Williams, but looked more like Morgan’s wife. But such little touches of reality never deterred speculative “truth.” Until the time of her death in 1926, Anna Williams was followed by a plague of tall tales, and innuendo that left little doubt that she had compromised her feminine morals and modeled for an artist. Roger W. Burdette’s latest research book, Girl on the Silver Dollar, is a search for truth after over 140 years of confusion. More than a decade of patient research, investigation and validation have produced a meaningful story of real people, behaving as people do in their daily lives. That Nannie modeled for George Morgan in October 1876, just weeks after he landed in America, is clearly established. A contemporary portrait titled “Anna W. Williams” was created by Philadelphia realist painter Thomas Eakins and his future wife Susan McDonald – exactly as described by one of Nannie’s friends. Morgan’s sketch book includes untitled pencil drawings that match Nannie’s features. An engraved illustration in Harper’s Monthly Magazine from 15 years later shows Nannie older but with the same distinctive features. Yet, none of her features resemble any part of the 1878 silver dollar Liberty portrait. Along with images of Anna’s other modeling work, Burdette presents details of her career as teacher, advocate and later Supervisor of Kindergartens in Philadelphia’s early childhood education system. But Girl on the Silver Dollar is more than about Anna Williams. A separate chapter chronicles the development of a new “standard silver dollar” to replace the one eliminated by the Coinage Act of 1873. Here we find Mint Director Linderman on the verge of accepting William Barber’s new Liberty portrait (often called the “Sailor Head” by pattern collectors), only to suspend work when Morgan arrived from London. Copious pattern pieces photos, descriptions and quotations bring the reader into behind-the-public-scene discussion and controversy. Controversy is also a theme in the following chapter dedicated to uncovering the truth behind elusive 1895-P silver dollars struck for circulation. Long in demand by coin collectors, none of the 12,000 pieces struck for circulation have ever been identified. This forced collectors to include an 1895 proof dollar in their cabinets and albums to fill that gaping hole. Normal Philadelphia Mint operations suggest the twelve bags of circulation dollars were placed in a crowded vault, then transferred to the new Philadelphia Mint sometime between 1899 and 1901. Some authors have speculated that the 1895 coins were actually dated “1894” even when ample evidence argues otherwise. The most common explanation is that all 1895 circulation dollars were indiscriminately melted during the rush to convert coins into bullion for sale to Great Britain in 1918. The final chapter of Girl on the Silver Dollar brings us to the original and implementation of the Pittman Act of 1918. This urgently passed Act of Congress caused nearly half of all existing U.S. silver dollars to be converted into bullion and sold to Great Britain to help stabilize the economy in India during World War I. Although we know the number of silver dollars destroyed, no records were kept of coin dates or mints. Thus, a great anonymous hoard was destroyed and an equally anonymous hoard remained in Treasury vaults until the great silver dollar distribution of 1963-64. (See Burdette’s early 2019 book release, Private Pattern and Related Pieces: International Nickel & Gould Incorporated, for details about the run of Treasury silver dollars.) Together, Girl on the Silver Dollar is a feast for the eyes and minds of coin collectors everywhere. Every owner of a Morgan silver dollar who has wondered about the origin of this beloved, if somewhat stuffy Liberty portrait, will find new revelations. Ideas and facts not only about the coin but about the people who designed and manufactured theses silver dollars are found on every page. We can see the coins pilling in unwanted masses, shuttled from vault to vault, and eventually used as war-time tools for the Allied victory.

The distributor is Wizard Coin Supply, Chantilly, VA. Their website has ordering information. If you want an autographed copy, let them know when you order. There's no extra charge -- as long as my pen has ink.

See above.....

Go on the internet and look for good photos of Genuine coins of the date and mint on your fakes. Compare genuine to your fakes. Heritage Auctions do not authenticate coins and they certainly did not authenticate the fake you have. If you still doubt everyone here, send them to NGC along with the appropriate fee and wait for the results. The fake coins will come back unholdered and you will be out several hundred dollars for postage, insurance and the high-value grading fees.

It's over. 75% off our previously marked down half-price.... Get 'em before the next jumbles sale.

It is a worn, circulated quarter. Worth 25-cents. Looks like other pocket change quarters.

Do not waste you money of "grading." That will add nothing to its value.

No. They will fluctuate as such fads always do. Do you want to trade them for Beanie Babies, or Bradford Exchange plates, or FM sterling silver bird plates?

Wizard Coin Supply in Virginia, and some other supply companies carry them in stock.

The bronze item pictured above is not a "hub trial," "die trial," "trial by fire," or a "Happy Trials to You..." (cue the Trigger cameo)

A "Price Guide" is intended to show or indicate a course, or is a list of approximations intended to assist users. It is not an absolute set of values, nor is it necessarily consistently derived from identical sources.

Which weighs more in your coin buying budget?

If you will read the section in Girl on the Silver Dollar it should clear most of your confusion. There are no drawings with the posted letters. They might exist -- somewhere -- someplace -- sometime. There's a place for them...." [got to hit that minor 7th....] The item pictured is merely a copper or brass test piece of central matrix, with rough star placement and text spacing - it's not a pattern for anything.

Thanks!

It quickly becomes "just junk."

That sounds like A) more trouble than it's worth, and B) only woks is ALL items are priced accordingly, and C) only for cash transactions.

"Centennial Dollar" follow-up. FYI May 5 1876 Hon. James Pollock Sir I send you sketches of the New Dollar as proposed and described in the directions you did me the honor to hand to me. In No. 1 I have shown [sic] a reverse, having the number of stars, wreath, and denomination only, omitting all inscriptions. And of course omitting the stars on its obverse as we have them here, viz in this drawing. In No. 2 I have shewn [sic] the inscription of “First Centennial of American Independence” and suggested how the motto “In God We Trust” could be inserted on either face of the coin. In No. 3 I have simply shewn [sic] for example how the stars would look in the outer circumference of the letters United States of America as in this No. 3 or inside the words as in No. 2. I wish to remark that if we use the motto “First Centennial of American Independence” it would involve making a new die when no longer appropriate. Also by taking up some of our space, prevents the full display of a wreath, as shown in drawing No. 1. In No. 4 I shew [sic] a wreath and stars on the reverse, and the Head of Liberty and appropriate mottos on the obverse. I am Sir Very respectfully Yours, William Barber May 6, 1876 Hon. H.R. Linderman Director of the Mint Washington, D.C. Sir In compliance with your request of the 1st inst., our Engraver, Mr. Barber, has prepared, and I herewith enclose for your consideration, four designs for a new silver dollar, for the Centennial and subsequent years. My own decided preference for the Centennial dollar is the design on card No. 2 and for the subsequent years the design on card No. 4. The Engraver is in entire accord with me in this choice. The designs explain themselves, and show how very happily they can be adapted to the proposed new coin, without crowding or clumsiness. No. 2 gives with ease and neatness the essential and very desirable inscription “First Centennial of American Independence,” and No. 4 shows how very readily and appropriately for future years the circle of stars can be transferred from the obverse to the reverse, in lieu of the Centennial inscription, and yet preserve the general unity of the successive issues of the new dollar, while still leaving the Centennial dollar a distinctive coin by itself. [May 8, 1876 I think the idea of using “First Centennial of American Independence” on the regular issue had better be abandoned, and strike a specimen (No. 3) using the Regular Obverse for that purpose. As the piece could be struck on the large Press, you could readily strike any number required. I shall be glad to discuss the matter fully on Thursday. H.R. Linderman, Director.

Data sources would be the same but the user interface (UI) will display different data depending on the role assigned to the user by system administration role definition sub-routine. The "hack" Bear mentioned also suggests a possible security defect in US Mint (vendor) software.

The same code is used for multiple viewers who see only what the UI permits. In this situation it is possible the customer service staff see what the customer sees, plus additional data that could help them to take appropriate action. Raw data probably comes from the same sets of databases regardless of UI or user role.

Mr. Lange: Where did you find this photo? Thanks!