1859 O Seated Liberty Dollar

[CSdot]

Now when I look at my coins, I not only imagine what life was like when that coin, an 1859 O Seated Liberty Dollar for example, was struck, but also what this Dollar would have meant if my grandparents came across one.

 

One interesting aspect of coin collecting for me is it allows me to consider what life was like at different point in the past and what it will be like in the future. Like many, my interest in collecting coins began when a relative introduced the hobby while I was young. My grandparents were active in the local coin club, and took me with them to the bi-weekly meetings. I remember buying low dollar items during the auctions, and watching my grandmother regularly win the drawing. Some people are born with a natural luck. I can't explain it, but I have seen it too often to discount it as only chance.

 

My grandparents, born in the early twenties, are now deceased. I have rediscovered coin collecting as an adult, and have introduced the hobby to my three children. They have taken to it in varying levels of interest. Maybe they will pick it back up in later life too. I have even served as the president of that same coin club my grandparents attended. I learned later that my grandfather at one time was president too.

 

When my grandparents passed, I was in charge of sorting and distributing their collection. I was told that they were burglarized at some point in the past, which might explain the lack of high dollar items. I sorted the items and distributed them amongst their 5 children.

 

Now when I look at my coins, I not only imagine what life was like when that coin, an 1859 O Seated Liberty Dollar for example, was struck, but also what this Dollar would have meant if my grandparents came across one. I know that a bag of 1859 O Seated Liberty Dollars were found in the U.S. mint storage vaults when the country was going off of the silver coinage standard. That explains why I can find a MS62 example today. Was an 1859 O Seated Liberty Dollar a common coin to my grandparents when they were collecting in the 1950s - 1970s. Would a Seated Liberty Dollar be the equivalent of a Morgan Dollar to me? My grandparents were not too much older than I am now (45) when I was born. Does that mean that 1850s coinage to them was like collecting 1800 - 1810 coins to them?

 

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[jgenn]

If you wonder about what other coins were in circulation at the time your 1859-O was minted, you can reference a book published in 1845, "A Monograph of the Silver Dollar: Good and Bad", written by Dr. John Leonard Riddell, during his appointment as melter and refiner of the New Orleans Mint. The book catalogs the silver dollars circulating in the US at the time (1833-1844) and includes facsimile images and assay data on 425 different varieties. Google has a free ebook version (https://books.google.com/books/about/A_Monograph_of_the_Silver_Dollar.html?id=YwAXAAAAYAAJ)