The History of United States Coinage As Illustrated by the Garrett Collection

Don Taxay quotes a letter from Director Pollock of the Philadelphia Mint to Linderman, dated March 1, 1878:

Your telegram of today and your communication of yesterday, by mail, have been duly received.

I had an immediate conference with Mr. Morgan who will proceed with all possible dispatch to complete the hubs for his design, which you informed me has been adopted. Our engraver, Mr. Barber, has been instructed and will proceed as soon as possible to make the requisite collars and working dies.

I have directed the melter and refiner to put his whole available force and furnaces to work immediately turning out ingots for the new silver dollars and to deliver to the coiner daily all the ingots that the latter can receive, and to store in his vaults any ingots that may be over from time to time, until the coiner can take them.

The coiner had been instructed to roll the ingots, and cut, anneal, and clean planchets to as large an amount daily as the facilities at his command will permit, and to accumulate as large a store of finished planchets as may be possible, so that when the working dies are ready we can proceed immediately to strike dollars to the full capacity of our coining presses, and maintain thereafter as continuous and large an outturn of these coins as the operative force of the machinery at the Mint will permit.

This politically-motivated situation resulted in the coinage in 1878 of over 22 million silver dollars, about three times more than had been minted in all years of silver dollar coinage previously from the first year of issue, 1794, to the last, 1873. Unneeded and unwanted silver dollars piled up by the millions in Treasury vaults. The Act of July 14, 1890 provided that silver purchases be increased. The secretary of the Treasury was authorized to purchase 4.5 million ounces of silver each month, or a half million more ounces than the maximum amount authorized under the earlier 1878 legislation. From 1878 to 1904 silver dollars were minted to the total face value of $570, 166, 793. A hiatus followed, and in 1921 additional Morgan dollars were minted. Years later, in the 1960s, hundreds of millions of dollars, including Morgan dollars dating back to 1878, were released from Treasury vaults, much to the delight of numismatists who obtained many date and mintmark varieties for face value.

Many complaints were printed concerning the Morgan dollar design. The head of Miss Liberty was variously called "ugly," "timid," and "lacking character." Responding to these attacks, George T. Morgan produced several varieties of pattern dollars, including the beautiful 1879 "Schoolgirl" design, considered by numismatists today to be one of the most beautiful products ever to emanate from the confines of the Philadelphia Mint. Morgan's original design, however, lived on until it was replaced in 1921 by the Peace dollar.

Following William Barber's death in 1879, his son Charles was named to the post of chief engraver. He maintained the position until his own death on February 18, 1917. His designs produced for circulation were the 1883 Liberty head nickel and the dime, quarter, and half dollar of 1892. In addition he produced many patterns and several commemoratives.

During the 1878-1880 period numerous experiments were made at the Mint with different alloys and standards. The 1879 and 1880 $4 gold pieces, called "stellas," were patterns for an international coinage suggested by John A. Kasson, minister to Austria. It was believed that a $4 gold coin would facilitate exchange with the Austrian 8 florin, Italian 20 lire, French 20 franc, Spanish 20 peseta, and Dutch 8 florin pieces. However, fluctuating international exchange rates proved the idea unfeasible. Nevertheless, 415 examples were struck of the 1879 design with flowing hair produced by Charles E. Barber. Apparently many of these were given to congressmen and others of influence. Related to the stella was the 1879 metric double eagle, or "quintuple stella," which specified itsmetallic content and weight in the metric system as part of the obverse legend. Goloid, a special alloy containing gold and silver in addition to copper, was experimented with, but its use was never implemented in coinage for only an expert metallurgist could differentiate between a coin struck in goloid metal and containing a portion of gold and a similar-appearing coin struck in standard silver alloy.

From March 1, 1879, to June 1885 Col. A. Loudon Snowden served as the superintendent of the Mint. Originally he joined the Philadelphia Mint on May 7, 1857, when he was offered the position of registrar by his uncle, James Ross Snowden, director of the Mint. He later served as coiner. President Rutherford B. Hayes in December 1878 offered him the position of director of all mints of the United States, but not wanting to live in Washington, Snowden declined. In 1879 a new offer was made, this time the superintendency of the Philadelphia Mint, which Snowden accepted.