Silver Dollars & Trade Dollars of the United States - A Complete Encyclopedia
Q. David Bowers
1884 Trade Dollar
Coinage Context
Redemption proposed: In 1883 and continuing in 1884, there were many debates and discussions concerning the redemption of trade dollars by the government. Questions arose, such as: What should be done with chop marked trade dollars; should they be rejected as damaged coins? Would the redemption of trade dollars give the government so much silver that purchases of newly-mined silver under the 1878 Bland-Allison Act would be halted for a time? (The Western mining interests wanted no such thing to happen, of course.) Would the announcement that trade dollars were being redeemed for face value result in a huge and unwanted influx of non-chopmarked trade dollars from the Orient?
As time went on, it became the general feeling that the government would not want chopmarked pieces. Thus, many of the coins which had been imported since the late 1870s were now shipped out to the Orient. Government accounts show that 225,500 trade dollars were exported in the fiscal year ending in 1884, 1,073,150 in the fiscal year ending in 1885, and 354,288 in 1886, or a total of 1,652,938-which represents about 80% of the amount which had been returned to the United Statesduring the years 1879 to 1882. Presumably, many of these had chop marks. (From Willem, The United States Trade Dollar, p. 132.)
Under terms of the Bland-Allison Act no amount of reimported silver could lessen the Treasury's obligation to buy domestic silver for Morgan dollars. Clever politicians, these congressmen!
About the 1884 trade dollar: So far as the government records are concerned, there is no such thing as an 1884 trade dollar, either in business strike or Proof form (although there is an official record of dies having been made for the issue). None is listed in Mint records, and no specimen was given to the Mint Collection; these two procedures were usually followed in the production of normal Proof issues.
From time to time there have been claims that 252 (or 264) 1884 trade dollars were struck, but this is based on Mint production records for fiscal year 1884 (July 1, 1883 to June 30, 1884), totaling 252 trade dollars. These 252 were all coined between July 1, 1883 and December 31, 1883, and therefore bore the 1883 date; see monthly figures quoted above under 1883. The 264 figure adds the 12 delivered June 1883 to the 252 of July-December 1883.
