Q. David Bowers
Business Strikes:
Enabling legislation: Act of January 18, 1837
Designer of obverse: Robert Ball Hughes (after Gobrecht)
Designer of reverse: Robert Ball Hughes (after Reich)
Weight and composition: 412.S grains; .900 silver, .100 copper
Melt-down (silver value) in year minted: $1.040
Dies prepared: Obverse: Unknown; Reverse: Unknown
Business strike mintage: 30,700; Delivery figures by day: January 13: 5,700; April 30: 2,000; May 17: 8,500; July 29: 14,500.
Estimated quantity melted: Unknown
Approximate population MS-65 or better: 6 to 10 (URS-4)
Approximate population MS-64: 10 to 15 (URS-5)
Approximate population MS-63: 4 to 8 (URS-3)
Approximate population MS-60 to 62: 8 to 12 (URS-5)
Approximate population VF-20 to AU-58: 300 to 450 (URS-10)
Characteristics of striking: Most are very well struck.
Known hoards of Mint State coins: None
Proofs:
Dies prepared: Obverse: 3; Reverse: 2.
Proof mintage: 470; delivery dates: February 6: 100 delivered; February 13: 30; February 17: 100; March 14: 140; July 12: 100.
Approximate population Proof-65 or better: 36+/- (URS-7)
Approximate population Proof-64: 60+/- (URS-7)
Approximate population Proof-63: 80+/- (URS-8)
Approximate population Proof-60 to 62: 210+/- (URS-9)
Commentary
Most business strike dollars of this date were exported.
Pollock on the Silver Dollar
In the Annual Report of the Director of the Mint, 1864, James Pollock reiterated his stance against having the silver dollar made to a different weight standard than other silver coins: "Permit me again to refer to the anomalous character of the silver dollar of the United States, and to the observations on this subject in former reports. The whole dollar should be made, in weight and value, the exact multiple of our fractional silver currency, and the gold dollar should be, by law, declared the unit value of our money."
Silver in China
The Westminster Review, January 1864, commented as follows on China:
"[An important feature] of Eastern trade is the manner in which it absorbs precious metals. This is a peculiarity so intimately bound up with the social condition of the East, that it is likely to last as long as their ignorance and their mutual mistrust."
The account went on to say that China had an insatiable demand for silver. "Of late the demand for [Mexican 1 dollars in China has caused them to command prices above their intrinsic worth; but this is only a consequence of Chinese barbarism, it cannot be taken as entering into the price of silver any more than the still more excessive premium they were content to pay for Spanish pillar dollars, which amounted to nearly 20% of their value. Indeed, it is only the absolute exhaustion of that once almost universal currency that induced the Chinese authorities, in 1855, to publish a tariff at which the Mexican dollar should circulate in China. No stronger proof can be required of the absorbing power of the East than the fact that the Chinese demand has absolutely swallowed up the most extensively known silver coin that ever existed in the world. The celebrated piece of eight. .. will soon become a numismatic curiosity."
The Year 1864 in History
The Civil War continued to rage. On February 15th, General William Tecumseh Sherman's troops occupied Meridian, Mississippi. On March 10th, U.S. Grant was placed in command of all Union armies. During the first week of June, Lee defeated Grant at the Battle of Cold Springs Harbor, after which General Sherman was overwhelmingly defeated in Georgia in the Battle of Kenesaw Mountain. In July, the Battle of Atlanta saw victory for Sherman. In November, Sherman led his 60,000 troops on a 30- to 60-mile-wide swath of devastation through Georgia to the seacoastan act remembered even today with horror.
In the presidential election, Lincoln, with 55% of the popular votes, beat Democrat General George McClellan. Nevada became the 36th state in the Union. On May 26th, Montana Territory was created from part of Idaho Territory. Gold explorations and discoveries continued in Montana, centered in Virginia City, a town with the same name as that of the center of silver-mining activity in Nevada. Congress voted to set aside Yosemite Valley as the first national scenic reserve. Crops in Europe failed once again, and much wheat was shipped there by traders in the North. In the meantime, there were food shortages in parts of the South. In a situation which became famous in the annals of the security business, Daniel Drew and certain New York politicians sold New York & Hudson River Railroad short. In the meantime, Cornelius Vanderbilt had bought all the available supply of shares, plus calls for an additional 27,000. Forced to the wall by Vanderbilt, Drew and his associates sustained tremendous losses when they were forced to buy from Vanderbilt for $285 per share.
The value of Legal Tender "greenback" notes went from bad to worse, and on July 11th, a $10 paper note was worth just $3.90 in silver coins. In the Confederacy, a $10 note was worth just 46¢ in coin.
The Act of April 22, 1864 discontinued the copper-nickel alloy for cents, and authorized mintage of cents and two-cent pieces in "French bronze," an alloy continued in use (for cents) through much of the first half of the twentieth century. The two-cent coins were the first to circulate with IN GOD WE TRUST; this motto appeared on silver denominations, 25¢ and up, gold $5 and up, beginning in 1866. Cents struck later in the year bore Longacre's initial L on the bonnet ribbon; the gold dollar had shown the L since 1849, the $3 and $20 displayed JBL on the neck truncation from the beginning of these denominations. Philadelphia mintages of most silver and gold denominations remained low for much the same reasons as in 1863. Unidentified parties (the Midnight Minters?) made Proof restrikes of trimes and half dimes and possibly other denominations.