Q. David Bowers
Business Strikes:
Enabling legislation: Act of February 12, 1873
Designer: William Barber
Weight: 420 grains
Composition: .900 silver, .100 copper
Melt-down (silver value) in year minted: $1.0221 Dies prepared: Obverse: 15; Reverse: 15. According to research by R.W. Julian, 6 pairs were sent from Philadelphia on July 13, 1873,6 more on Septem-ber 22nd, and the remaining 3 pairs at an unknown date. Dies lasted longer than at Carson City. If all die pairs were used, over 46,000 coins were produced per pair.
Business strike mintage: 703,000. Delivery figures by month: July: 42,000; August: 111,000; September: 137,000; October: 98,000; November: 115,000; December: 200,000.
Approximate population MS-65 or better: 4 to 8 (URS-3)
Approximate population MS-64: 25 to 50 (URS-6)
Approximate population MS-63: 30 to 50 (URS-6)
Approximate population MS-60 to 62: 100 to 175 (URS-8)
Approximate population VF-20 to AU-58: 3,000- 6,000+ (URS-13)
Characteristics of striking: Some have slight weakness on the eagle's sinister leg and on the eagle's claws.
Known hoards of Mint State coins: None
Rarity with original Chinese chopmark(s): Common.
Proofs:
None
Commentary
Coinage commenced in July 1873. Nearly all were shipped to China.
Additional Information
A New Coining Press
The American Journal of Numismatics, January 1874, pp. 62, 63, contained the following report:
"We were shown yesterday at the works of Messrs. Morgan & Orr, No. 1219 Callow hill Street, the new coining press, just built by them for the purpose of coining at the San Francisco Mint all denominations of silver and gold coinage, but especially the new silver trade dollar ordered by the Department of the Mint.
"This new machine weighs eighteen thousand pounds, and is made entirely of the best steel, iron, and brass produced in Philadelphia. The steel plate above the coinage stamp is home-made, and equal, if not superior, to the finest English, a fact that speaks well for our Philadelphia steel industry. The beautiful heavy brass beam was cast seven times over to secure its accuracy and exactness, as well as finish and strength. The large fly-wheel is cast hollow, and loaded with base metal so as to give it additional weight to counterbalance the heavy brass beam. This fly-wheel was cast in sections and securely united.
"In the front of the machine is a finely made brass cylinder to hold the unstamped coins, which, as the wheel revolves, slip down one at a time upon the sliding bed-plate of iron with apertures made to receive a single coin, then drawn into the machine, the stamp descends, andthe new trade dollar is carried out complete by an interior inclined plane. The heavy brass beam referred to of course controls the stamp. Perfect simplicity characterizes the machine, which is two and a half times beyond the capacity of any other coining machine that the firm ever made for the government. It is capable of striking eighty twenty-dollar gold pieces, equal to $1,600, per minute, or twenty [sic; it would seem that the number should be larger] silver trade dollars in a minute Philadelphia North American, October 16, 1873."
This same press is on exhibit today (in the 1990s) at the entryway of the American Numismatic Association Headquarters building at 818 North Cascade Avenue, Colorado Springs, Colorado.