Q. David Bowers
Business Strikes:
Enabling legislation: Act of April 2, 1792
Designer: Robert Scot, with some credit due to Joseph Wright, who engraved the Liberty Cap cent in August 1793.
Statutory weight: 416 grains; .8924 silver, balance copper; actual fineness used (unauthorized by Congress): .900 silver, .100 copper
Melting value (silver bullion value) in year minted (discussion for all years 1794-1803): (In addition to the above, anyone desiring European melt-down values of U.S. silver dollars 1794-1799 can adapt them from Table 15, Jastram, Silver: The Restless Metal. Dollars 1794-1795 are to be computed on the basis of .900 fine silver per coin, while those 1796-1799 are to be computed at .8924 fine. These are Londonmetal market prices translated at the fictitious exchange rate of $4.44 per £, without allowance for normal discounts and/or premiums; prices in the United States were different. {have been unable to locate any reliable yearly figures for the 1794-1799 years. Quite probably, in New York a 1794 dollar was worth more than $0.907 in bullion value. Hamburg calculations courtesy of Andrew W. Pollock III. Michael]. Hodder provided information concerning Mint deposits.) Considered by Mint officials to be on a par with the Spanish dollar, and worth about $1.00 intrinsically. Silver values varied widely, and published data for prices on the London and Hamburg exchanges are not necessarily relevant for Philadelphia. Using European data, irrelevant as noted, the figure $0.907 is obtained. Again using European data (the Hamburg Exchange ratios of silver to gold), and reckoning the American gold eagle ($10) at its statutory weight of 247.59 grains gold, and the silver dollar at 3.71.25 grains silver, and using 1793's ratio of 15 to 1 (silver to gold) computed the yearly silver bullion value of the U.S. silver dollar as follows: 1794 (ratio: 15.37 to 1) $0.976; 1795 (ratio: 15.55 to 1) $0.964; 1796 (ratio: 15.65 to 1) $0.958; 1797 (ratio: 15.41 to 1) $0.973;'1798 (ratio: 15.59 to 1) $0.962; 1799 (ratio: 15.74 to 1) $0.953; 1800 (ratio: 15.68 to 1) $0.956; 1801 (ratio: 15.46 to 1) $0.970; 1802 (ratio: 15.25 to 1) $0.983; and 1803 (ratio: 15.41 to 1) $0.973. In 1794, the Bank of Maryland deposited in the Mint the ecu equivalent of 69,692.4 ounces of silver, for which $80,715.735 was paid out, equal to $1.15 per ounce of pure silver. By this reckoning, a silver dollar (statutory weight of 371.25 grains pure silver) would have been worth $0.889. However, as R.W. Julian has pointed out, (Letter to the author, January 2, 1993) there is no way to determine the exact value of silver at the Mint at the time, except to note that Mint officials always considered Spanish (later, Mexican) dollars to be worth par, or $1 in terms of a U.S. silver dollar. Values of silver in terms of gold are, as noted, not particularly relevant. "Part of the difficulty lies in the fact that, while the United States officially had a bimetallic system, in reality we had' the single standard of silver, and all monetary matters were judged on this basis."
Dies prepared: Obverse: 1 (plus another, of which only a pattern striking is known, without obverse stars); reverse: 1
Business strike mintage, calendar year: 1;758 delivered; possibly 2,000 or So minted; Delivery figures by day: October 15: 1,758.
Estimated quantity melted: None specifically. Possibly 250 or so poorly struck 1794 dollars, from an original mintage of 2,000, were rejected as unsuitable for circulation and were used in 1795 as planchets for 1795 dollars.
Approximate population MS-65 or better: 1 (the Neil-Carter coin) (URS-1)
Approximate population MS-64: 0 (URS-0)
Approximate population MS-63:. 3 or 4 (URS-3)
Approximate population MS-60 to 62: 1 or 2 (URS-1)
Approximate population AU-50 to 58: 6 to 9 (URS- 4)
Approximate population VF-20 to EF-45: 35 to 45 (URS-7)
Approximate population Fair-2 to F-15: 75 to 90 (URS-8)
Approximate population for all grades combined: 120 to 150 (URS-8)
CONDITION CENSUS: 65-63-63-63-62-61 Characteristics of striking: Nearly always seen lightly struck at lower left of the obverse and corresponding part of the reverse.
Known hoards of Mint State coins: Two pieces were in the Lord St. Oswald Collection auctioned in London in 1964, hardly a "hoard," but an interesting instance of two pieces from the same source.
Known hoards of circulated coins;(Most of this information is courtesy of Jack Collins) Dealer John Saunder owned about 7 or 8 at one time in the late 1880s; George H. Earle had a few in the decade or so after 1900; Dr. Charles Ruby, Fullerton, California, is believed to have had 6 by the late 1960s; in the 1980s an Ohio numismatist consigned about 15 pieces to Auctions by Bowers and Merena, Inc. for sale.
Proofs:
None
Commentary
The 1794 silver dollar, the first year of issue of the denomination, has always been a highly prized classic.