Q. David Bowers
Silver Dollar Sales Halted
The following is from The Wall Street Journal, March 26, 1964:
Dillon Halts Treasury's Silver Dollar Sales; Kennedy Half Dollars Are Grabbed Quickly:
Treasury Secretary Dillon drove the money changers out of his temple yesterday, by decreeing a halt to sales of silver dollars. Coin collectors, meanwhile; were fast grabbing up the initial stocks of still another coin ..... the half dollar piece honoring the late President Kennedy that went on sale Tuesday.
The Treasury secretary's silver dollar order says that those who want to exercise their legal right to exchange a $1 silver certificate for a dollar's worth of silver will have to do so somewhere else than in Washington. They will have to appear at an assay office in New York or San Francisco where they will be given. 77 of an ounce of silver "crystals" sifted into a plain envelope for each $1 silver certificate they put up.
"It became increasingly clear," one Treasury authority remarked, that we aren't distributing the dollars in a very dignified way."
Spurred by word that the Treasury was digging into old stocks of silver dollars that might have extra value, collectors have besieged the department in increasingly long and irritable lines, lugging away up to $10 million in the coins. The usual decorum of the Treasury was dashed by overnight sidewalk campers, line-crashers, littering and noisy haggling among those willing to part with their purchases on the Treasury steps in return for quick profit from another even more eager collector.
By yesterday afternoon, officials found they were down to about three million silver dollars. And a peek into the long sealed vaults suggested that nearly all the dollars remaining appeared to have been made at the Carson City Mint, which closed around 1900. Practically all of the Carson City dollars are expected to have "special numismatic value" the Treasury explained, and officials said they cut off sales because they didn't think their method was one that assured "equitable" distribution.
Because these dollars would have been entirely absorbed by coindealers and collectors, the Treasury decided their sale couldn't have added to the supply of circulating coins. The Treasury left unclear the fate of the remaining dollars, but it suggested some fascinating possibilities. Officially, it said only that the "eventual disposition of the existing small Treasury stocks of silver dollars will be carefully considered in the light of existing circumstances at a later date."
One possibility tempting some officials would be to wash their hands of the numismatic affairs by simply melting down the dollars into bars of bullion. But this might make the Treasury even less popular among coin collectors. So officials are considering whether to ask Congress for a change of law so they can auction the coins to the highest bidders, or tag them with their value as collectors' items rather than sell them at face value.
It is also possible, officials say, that sometime they'll go back to the over-the-counter sales. Or they might try to avert crowds at the Treasury by sending all the dollars to Federal Reserve Banks which would then send them on to commercial banks. Officials say their ultimate decision will depend heavily upon "guidance" from Congress.
The Treasury sought to make clear that the $485 million of silver dollars in public hands "will continue to circulate freely alongside their paper money counterparts." While no silver dollars have been made since 1935, the announcement notedthat Congress "has been considering appropriations that would provide for further coinage of silver dollars."
Dollars Arrive in Reno
The following undated Associated Press dispatch was printed during the closing days of March 1964:
Sixty Tons of Cartwheels Roll in Reno
RENO (AP)-Sixty tons of silver dollars arrived in Reno Saturday and a big crowd gathered as the shipment, which could be the last, was hauled into the First National Bank. The 2,000 sacks contained two million dollars. They were brought from Washington in armored cars and trucks.
Jordan Crouch, bank vice president, said the shipment was one of the largest ever received in Nevada. Crouch said the order for the dollars, for general use in Nevada, got in just before the treasury's dwindling silver dollar supply was frozen by Secretary Douglas Dillon.
Dollars in Kansas
This undated Associated Press news dispatch is from late March or April 1964:
Silver Dollars Hike Sales-Small Wonder
DERBY, Kan. (AP)- A touch of gamblers' blood stirred shoppers here yesterday when it developed that some of the 9,000 silver dollars handed out by merchants were worth $4 or more each to coin collectors.
The promotion, which started as a Silver Dollar Day, ended on a something for nothing note and paid off for merchants and shoppers alike. "My sales volume before noon was twice what it is on a full normal day," said John Sollenberger, owner of a department store. He gave away a silver dollar with every sale of $10 or more. Glenn Lake, owner of a hardware store, had a similar give-away gimmick and reported business up 300% above normal.
The promotion started when 80 merchants agreed to distribute 20,000 silver dollars to customers and let their circulation demonstrate the flow of cash through this oil, grain and cattle town of 6,500 persons south of Wichita. They distributed 9,000 silver dollars yesterday and will use the remainder on a second promotion day May 6.
"We had thought about using $2 bills," said a Chamber of Commerce spokesman, "but decided the cartwheels are better. Change in pockets is spent quicker than folding money."
The merchants found unexpected help from two sides-a natural scarcity of the coins which haven't been minted in 29 years, and discovery that about 90 per cent of the coins sent here had never been circulated.
Each merchant put up $250 for the stunt, but the Federal Reserve Bank at Kansas City turned down their request for the 20,000 cartwheels. The Treasury was running low on them and Congress had decided to authorize the minting of new ones.
Larry Ricketts, editor and publisher of the Derby Daily Reporter, then appealed to Secretary of the Treasury Douglas Dillon. This brought the needed response and the Treasury shipped the dollars to Derby on March 23-two days before it stopped issuing them. Ricketts got 125 silver dollars to give to new subscribers and found they were worth over $500. He said all were minted either at New Orleans in 1883 or at Philadelphia in 1888. Coin catalogues list these as worth $4 to $4.50 when in new condition.
"I'm not selling any of these," Ricketts said, "They're all for new customers."