Q. David Bowers
Trade Dollars for Opium
The American Journal of Numismatics; January 1876, printed this item quoted from an unnamed San Francisco newspaper, which probably published it late in the year 1875:
"WHAT BECOMES OF Trade Dollars. It was a stroke of policy on the part of our government to devise in the trade dollar a coin which should compete with the Mexican dollar and eventually drive it almost out of the Chinese market. After reaching that country it encounters an ignominious fate. The Chinese send it to India for the purchase of opium. They [i.e., trade dollars] go to the Calcutta Mint and come out as rupees, which are stamped with the native characters on one side and the value of the piece on the other.
"The trade of China with India and opium exceeds that of all other commodities, as is shown by the reports of the Chinese custom service. The amount returned for the last eight years, exclusively of the amount smuggled, which would probably double it, is 97,440,930 pounds. The amount of American silver which annually goes to India from China to pay for opium is immense. A base use for so beautiful a coin as the trade dollar, surely."
The preceding situation ultimately can be blamed on the British traders who (in default of Western trade goods, most of which the Chinese did not want) forced opium on the Chinese. Because anti-opium officials trashed some $6 million worth of opium shipments stored in Canton warehouses, the British started the Opium Wars (1839-1842).
Marc Emory's Special Coin
Professional numismatist Marc Emory related the following concerning an especially nice 1875 trade dollar: (Letter to the author, June 27, 1992.)
"As far as trade dollars go, there is a rather famous one I have handled (you did, too, at one time), whose pedigree sounds like an old coin dealer's tall tale: In early February 1975, I was still living in Philadelphia after graduating from college the year before. Early one morning, Bob Riethe, who had a coin shop out in Plymouth Meeting Mall, called me up to crow about the finest trade dollar he had ever seen. He said he had just bought it from Alan Woglom in Chalfont, Pennsylvania for $600-no small sum at the time. He also said it was an 1875 Philadelphia Mint coin. I said to cut out the nonsense, and to tell me what it was he really wanted to talk to me about. He swore it was no joke, so I drove out there swearing plagues upon his house if this was an early April Fool. Furthermore, he owed me $1,240 at the time.
"I arrived at his shop, wading through the snow and slush of the parking lot, and came to his counter in a mood which can politely be described as less than jovial. To boot, he kept me waiting for 10 minutes to explain to someone why common silver dollars were common, and that he couldn't pay $20 for 1922 Peace dollars in VF grade. Finally, he pulled out the coin in question. All was forgiven-provided he realized I wasn't going to leave his shop without the coin. The 1875 trade dollar he showed me was (and remains today) one of the most exquisite U.S. silver coins I have ever seen. I finally badgered him into letting me have it in lieu of all the money he owed me. I sold it (I wasn't too flush those days), to my great regret, to Maurice Rosen for $1,900. Maurice worked for First Coinvestors at that time. Maurice left FCI soon after that, and the coin soon appeared in one of their Pine Tree auctions. It was bought by Numismatic Associates of Ashland, Mass. for $3,000+ and sold to A.H. Lamborn. His collection was sold (here's where you come in) as the "Fairfield Collection" by your firm in 1977. The coin brought in excess of $7,000 this time.
"I lost track of it after that, as I was spending most of my time overseas by now. I did see it appear later in an ad by Jack Hertzberg, enclosed in a PCGS holder and graded a conservative MS-68. Where it is now, I don't know, but someone should be happy with it. To this day it remains one of the two favorite silver coins I ever owned (the other was an 1855-8 half dollar that went into James Pryor's collection)."
The 20-Cent Piece
The following is related in-depth in view of the fact that the reverse of the 20-cent piece features an eagle copied from the trade dollar:
Senator Jones of Nevada, in February 1874, introduced legislation to provide for a 20-cent piece, at a time when silver coins were not circulating in the East at all but were circulating freely in California, Nevada and surrounding districts. (Much of this information is paraphrased (and augmented) from Carothers, Fractional Money, pp. 262 ff. Also, Linderman, Money and Legal Tender; p. 45.)The Spanish coins had long since disappeared from circulation, but the term "bits" was still commonly used. Prices were quoted in bits, although there was no such thing as a "bit" or 12-1/2 cent coin. Someone who bought something priced at one bit and gave a quarter dollar in payment received a dime, called a "short bit," in exchange. He should have received a Spanish silver bit or real, or a dime and two and a half cents, but there were noreals in 'circulation in the West nor were there any half cents or one one-cent pieces. The one-cent denomination was so unpopular that it was not until 1908 that this denomination was even coined in San Francisco. Nickels were not popular either, and for this reason they were not coined until 1912. Coins in circulation in the American West were silver and gold, the preferred metals.
Jones in his proposal suggested that the 20-cent piece would stop this overcharging. On March 3, 1875 the 20-cent piece became legal. It was soon found that just because a coin of this denomination was available, merchants were not going to change their habits, and the piece was a failure. Later, when copper cents and nickel five-cent pieces became popular, the situation of small change straightened itself out. In the meantime, 20-cent pieces were immediately confused with quarter dollars of somewhat similar size and design. In 1878, Senator Sherman testified before a House committee about the 20-cent piece and said that it had been created "only because Senator Jones asked for it." In Dr. Henry R. Linderman's book, Money and Legal Tender, he said it was a mistake to introduce the piece, but that it was a proper de-nomination between adime and a half dollar and should have been used instead of a quarter dollar. It will be recalled that there is no $25 bill.