Q. David Bowers
1. The element of chance survival: The availability of Mint State dollars dated in the 1840s is strictly a matter of chance. I know of no hoards dispersed at a later date. In general, those issues with higher mintages have higher survival rates in Mint State, but this is not always true. Sometimes a lower-mintage date has a higher survival ratio, and vice-versa.
Among Mint State Liberty Seated dollars of many dates, a mini-hoard of just a half dozen or so coins can skew the survival figures considerably. Consider as an example the lovely mini-hoard which David Cohen has described, consisting of five Mint State 1854 dollars (see under the 1854 section below).
Although there are other mitigating factors, the element of chance survival is pertinent to later Liberty Seated dollars as well.
2. Distribution procedures: As will be seen under the appropriate dates and varieties described in the issue-by-issue analysis, many Liberty Seated dollars minted from spring 1853 through 1860 and most issued 1861-1869 were de facto trade dollars (literally speaking; however, they were not marked as such, of course) and were primarily made for foreign commerce. The 1859-S dollar was made specifically for export to the Orient.
3. The value of silver: All Liberty Seated silver dollars were worth more in meltdown value than face value. In the early years, particularly up to about 1851, this premium over face value was not great, and it did not pay bullion merchants to melt them down. However, 1851 and later, the value of silver rose on international markets (silver became "rare" in relation to "common" gold, as vast quantities of the latter precious metal came to light in California and, a few years later, Australia). After spring 1853 the Mint no longer paid out silver dollars for face value. Director Snowden charged buyers $1.08 per coin.
In other words, someone transacting business on the streets or in the stores of Philadelphia, New York, San Francisco, Charleston, New Orleans, or Chicago in the 1850s would not encounter newly minted Liberty Seated silver dollars in pocket change.
Where did the coins go? They were sold above face value to bankers, brokers, bullion houses, and others, who in turn sold them to merchants in the export trade. During the 1850s and 1860s, commercial interests in China and elsewhere in the Orient preferred silver coins to gold, and would not take paper money (which, in the United States, consisted of private bank notes, often of questionable value). Liberty Seated silver dollars were shipped in quantities to the Orient, where nearly all were weighed and melted. Unlike trade dollars, which circulated at sight hand-to-hand in commerce, and were chopmarked, Liberty Seated dollars traded by weight, were not chopmarked, and were reduced to bullion or converted to other coins. This exportation continued for many years.
In the meantime, existing Liberty Seated dollars that had been minted in the 1840s and used in American commerce were now, after 1850, worth a sufficient premium above face value that many Were melted (in particular, this melting was rampant in the years 1852 and early 1853) or sold through brokers for export.
It was not until after 1866 that the meltdown value of a Liberty Seated dollar fell below $1.03, and even so, it stayed a fraction above. $1.02 through to nearly the end of the series;
Numismatic considerations: Whereas nineteenth century numismatists were not interested in saving business strike dollars for their collections, two dates provided exceptions: 1851 and 1852. In the early 1850s it became known through the annual Mint reports that these were produced in very small quantities. Accordingly, a few collectors queried bullion dealers (a prime source for supplies in an. era in which there was not a single full-time professional coin dealer in business) and found dollars of these two years. Accordingly, a few more Mint State 1851 (in particular) and 1852 dollars exist than the mintage figures tend to suggest.
Public hoarding after July 1862: In July 1862, silver coins of all denominations disappeared from circulation, as citizens, uncertain as to whether the Union or the Confederacy would win the Civil War, hoarded coins from Indian cents to double eagles. By July 1862, Liberty Seated dollars were no longer generally seen in domestic commerce anyway, due to their silver premium value discussed above, but any stray pieces were soon withdrawn. New York banks and the Treasury had suspended specie payments, beginning with gold coins, as early as December 1861. Silver coins of all denominations did not reappear in domestic circulation until 1875, two years after the Liberty Seated dollar was discontinued in early 1873.
For these two reasons (silver value of the dollar being above its face value and the suspension: of specie payments), Liberty Seated silver dollars did not circulate in the United States' after the spring of 1853. Because of this, the chances for stray silver dollars dated from the 1850s onward being saved in safes, bureau drawers, etc., in America was slight, a factor contributing to the rarity of Mint State coins today."
Treasury hoards: From October 1962 through March 1964 the Treasury Department released long held bags of silver dollars from its stocks, including coins which had been stored in the New Orleans Mint building since the beginning of the present century. Although precise figures will never be known with certainty, Walter fl. Breen in his Encyclopedia of U.S. and Colonial Coins states that 3,000 1859-O, 6,000 1860-O, 2,000 1871, and 1,000 1872 Mint State Liberty Seated dollars came out of hiding at that time.