Silver Dollars & Trade Dollars of the United States - A Complete Encyclopedia

Harry X Boosel's Experience
In the same decade, a few bags of CC dollars were opened, not to be sold by mail to collectors, but in the normal course of business to satisfy the demand for ordinary silver dollars when application was made to the Treasury Building for them. Harry X Boosel, a young coin collector with great enthusiasm, worked for the government in Washington from 1936 to 1939. Around 1938, he heard that a few CC dollars were being paid out by the Cash Room at the Treasury Building. He would cash his government paycheck and convert the proceeds to silver dollars.

At the time, an applicant at the paying window could ask for "old silver dollars" and receive Mint State specirnens of Morgan dollars dated in the nineteenth century. Specific dates of Carson City dollars could not be obtained on request, but many Were included in the coins received by Boosel, In 1938 and 1939 he mailed postcards advertising a number of different Carson City dollars dated in the 1880s for $2.25 each, the odd 25 cents being for postage and handling. At the time, the market price for Uncirculated specimens of some of the dates was in the $5 to $10 range. Harry X Boosel told what happened:

I was swamped with orders. Quite a few people wrote to say they didn't believe the offer to sell coins for two dollars each was legitimate, and that I was pulling some kind of a fast deal like Frank Dunn did when he distributed Boone commemorative half dollars. However, it became known that I was selling very nice dollars, and for a couple of years I did a great business.

He related that a few other dealers knew about the distribution, but no one talked about it publicly, as they did not want the supply to be cut off. He recalled that John Zug, the Bowie, Maryland dealer, used to get quantities of Carson City dollars from the Cash Room at the time. If a coin was too severely bagmarked Zug would damage the CC mintmark on the reverse, thus making it useless to numismatists, and put it into circulation.

The 1940s and 1950s
The Cash Room cache continued to be the secret that really wasn't very secret. Washington-area dealers knew about it, and in the 1940s and early 1950s, a steady stream of CC dollars went from the Treasury Buildinginto dealers inventories.

No records were kept of all of the dates involved, but from what I have been able to gather, I believe that the Treasury Department in Washington had quantities of these dates:

1878-CC, 1879-CC (smaller quantities), 1880-CC, 1881-CC, 1882-CC, 1883-CC, 1884-CC, 1885-CC, 1889-CC (very few), 1890-CC, 1891-CC, 1892-CC, and 1893-CC (smaller quantities).

1878.CG dollars were paid out in large numbers in the early 1950s, after which bags of these became elusive in comparison to dates from 1880 through 1885.

1879-CC dollars were stored in the Cash Room, but probably no more than five or so bags were paid out in the 1950s. Most 1879-CCs probably went out as single coins or small groups.

1880-CC through 1885-CC dollars were paid out in quantity over the years. Many remained after March 1964, when the Treasury stopped distributing silver dollars.

What about 1889-CC? A few individual coins were paid out in the 1930s, and possibly some in the 1940s, and a few in the very early 1950s. This is not a date the Cash Room had in quantity. I presume that most 1889-CC dollars were shipped from Carson City to the San Francisco Mint, and were paid out from San Francisco, The several bags of which I have knowledge turned up in the West in the 1950s.

1890-CC and 1891-CC dollars were distributed in very large quantities in the 1950s and were so plentiful that there was little call for additional pieces. However, by the end of the decade they became scarce.

1892-CC dollars were paid out in quantity, but this was not one of the more plentiful dates on hand in Washington.

1893-CC dollars were paid out from the Cash Room, but, apparently, the quantity of this date was rather small. Presumably, many if not most were shipped to the San Francisco Mint circa 1910 and were later paid out from there.

In addition to Carson City dollars, the Cash Room had quantities of San Francisco Mint and New Orleans Mint coins of certain dates, and, of course, Philadelphia varieties, as noted earlier.

Additional information concerning the Cash Room payouts will be found below in the recollections of Harry J. Forman.