Q. David Bowers
Market Summary
Determining historical prices for trade dollars is a difficult task. While Proofs appeared with regularity in auctions from the 1880s onward, business strikes were often ignored. Few 'numismatists collected business strike issues; .thus, few collections contained an extensive selection of dates and mintmarks. Extensive pricing data for business strikes are not available until the mid-1930s, and even after that time the numbers were often wildly inconsistent, as is amply demonstrated by price lists, auction records, and market reports. The changes and revolution in grading in 1986 didn't help matters, either.
While high quality and high rarity should. mean higher prices, this has not always been so. As a result, the educated buyer can often do much better in the market than his or her contemporaries who might be interested only in investment and know nothing about the technical side of the series. (The reader of the present book will have more technical knowledge available than any buyer, even the most informed professional dealer, ever did earlier!) All of this may be a great advantage in the 1990s, as collectors once again begin to dominate the marketplace-for the first time in many years.
However, by consulting a wide variety of sources and making extrapolations and interpolations, I created a fairly complete pricing structure for each trade dollar date at five-year intervals from the time of issue to 1985, and for the time since then, prices for each year. Since 1986, grades have been much more consistent, especially among certified coins. Still, prices continue to vary widely, and a measure of opinion has to be added to figures observed in catalogues and reference works.