Q. David Bowers
With the law of February 1853 taking effect on the first of April, it is surprising that any dollars were struck in 1853, but 39,000 were produced in the first month of the new law while another 7,110 came in December. The dollar mintage of 1854-1857 is erratic, but generally in the range of a few tens of thousands of coins.
Considering the heavy net export of silver from the country, one wonders what such coins were used for; hoarding seems the only reasonable answer although it may be that some were exported to certain countries (perhaps in Central America) where the American dollar was rated above the Spanish or Mexican version for political reasons. Nations such as Guatemala tended to have strong ties with the U.S. as a foil against the territorial ambitions of Mexico. It is possible that part of the 1853 dollar coinage was on government account for some special obligation or payment.
Some of the silver dollars struck at Philadelphia in the 1850s were coined on government account or, to be more precise, that of Director James Ross Snowden. These were made to satisfy the normal requests for such coins by the public for use as birthday presents and the like. Perhaps a few hundred coins per year left the Mint for this reason, almost all to residents in and around Philadelphia. This may account for the few Uncirculated coins in existence today.
There was a rise in bullion imports in the late 1850s which may account for the nearly 100,000 silver dollars struck in 1857. However, there was no business strike coinage in 1858 despite equally heavy imports during that year.
Although dollars were not coined for circulation in 1858, they certainly were in 1859 and 1860. All of this was due to discoveries of large deposits of silver ore in the West, especially in Nevada. The famed Comstock Lode alone eventually was to yield hundreds of millions of ounces of silver. It is true that the metal was still being exported heavily from the United States, but for some reason a significant amount of the newly-mined silver went partly into dollars rather than being sent overseas.
In late 1858 and early 1859 the Treasury authorized coinage of the dollar at the branch mints of New Orleans and San Francisco, though it is not clear why such permission was required, especially in view of the fact that dies had been sent to one branch mint (New Orleans) on several occasions. The law did not specify silver denominations for particular mints. The director could have commenced coinage by simply sending the necessary dies and instructions. (New Orleans already had the planchet cutters, collars, and presses, and needed only current dies and coinage orders to resume minting dollars. The last silver dollar coinage in that mint had been in 1850.)
In March 1859 San Francisco Superintendent C.H. Hempstead acknowledged receipt of the weights and other tools necessary to begin the coinage of dollars. He noted, in a letter to Mint Director Snowden, that the "mercantile community" was pleased with the decision on silver dollar coinage and that $7,000 worth of bullion had already been deposited toward that end. However, only 20,000 dollars were to be coined at this mint in 1859, all in the spring.
It is sometimes said that silver dollar coinage after 1840 was due in part to the trade with the Orient, especially the treaty port of Canton. This may well be true, but the lack of dollar coinage in quantity at San Francisco shows that the Oriental trade was not that important in California and it was the upper classes on the East Coast of the United States that wanted Oriental luxury goods.
The situation at New Orleans and Philadelphia was quite different, but it is doubtful that the Oriental trade had anything to do with this coinage either. Instead, it shows that the products of the Nevada silver mines were being shipped to bullion brokers and mine owners in the East and South for their use. Nevada silver could not go into the minor coinage directly because of the Treasury edict to Snowden about paying for silver bullion with silver coin. Beginning in 1858 the Mint had been forced to adhere to the law and payout this coin only for gold; lower mintages of the late 1850s clearly show the results of this order. (QDB note: I differ from R.W. Julian, and believe that after spring 1853 most silver dollar coinage of the 1850s was shipped to China, mostly through East Coast ports, to pay for tea, silk, and other goods.)
Proofs of the 1850s
The only silver dollars struck in 1858 were Proofs made for collectors. Proof dollars had been made in increasing numbers since 1854 (conventional wisdom is that original Proofs are unknown for 1853), corresponding to the growing interest among the general public in collecting coins. Prior to about 1854 these had been called master coins, but in the late 1850s the term Proof had become widespread and was used by the Mint itself after 1859. ("Proof' almost certainly derives from the same term used by the printing industry, denoting a perfect example from new plates.) (In the "master coin" sense the term dates back to at least 1816, in a memorandum of William Wellesley Pole, master of the Royal Mint (Tower Mint, London); as quoted by Graham Dyer, "A Living Collection," World Coins, September 1988, pp. S-3 ff.)
Prior to 1859 Proof coins were issued by the Mint as single pieces, although sets were available upon request. The different denominations were not always ready at the same time and those wishing sets might not be able to assemble them until late in the year. Such coins were sold at face value, except for the silver dollar, which cost the collector $1.08.
Snowden charged eight cents extra for the silver dollar because he stated that it was worth this much in terms of the subsidiary silver coinage. (Those who purchased Proof dollars in 1858 paid $1.08 each for them, for example.) This odd extra charge, for single pieces paid out by the Mint, was kept in force until 1873, when the denomination was abolished by Act of Congress. However, after the early 1860s, when Proof silver coins were generally sold only in sets, the price for a single Proof dollar was raised to $1.60. Mint State dollars continued to be dispensed singly at $1.08 each.