Q. David Bowers
Business Strikes:
Enabling legislation: Certain earlier acts plus the Sherman Silver Purchase Act of July 14, 1890
Designer: George T. Morgan
Weight and composition: 412.5 grains; .900 silver, .100 copper
Melt-down (silver value) in year minted: $0.76416
Dies prepared: Obverse: 27; Reverse: 27
Business strike mintage: 5,296,000; Delivery figures by month: January: 785,000; February: 685,000; March: 700,000; April: 1,000,000; May: 850,000; June: 1,000,000; July: 6,000; August: none; September: none; October: 70,000; November: 100,000; December: 100,000.
Estimated quantity melted: Probably at least hundreds of thousands under the Pittman Act. Many more during the escalation of silver bullion prices in thelate 1970s.
Approximate population MS-65 or better: 1,600 to 2,600 (URS-12)
Approximate population MS-64: 6,000 to 10,000 (URS-14)
Approximate population MS-63: 12,000 to 20,000 (URS-15)
Approximate population MS-60 to 62: 40,000 to 70,000 (URS-17)
Approximate population G-4 to AU-58: 750,000 to 1,500,000 (URS-21)
Availability of prooflike coins: Prooflike coins are readily available. About one in three prooflike coins is DMPL, about 95% of which are below MS-65.
Characteristics of striking: Nearly always well struck and with attractive lustre.
Known hoards of Mint State coins: Bag quantities were released by the Treasury in the early 1940s through the early 1950s and, possibly, in the early 1960s. An estimated 5,000 or more coins were in the Redfield estate (1976).
Proofs:
None
Commentary
Mint State 1891-S dollars are usually seen sharply struck and with attractive lustre, but in lower levels such as MS-60 through 62, often bagmarked.
Distribution of Silver Dollars
The Annual Report of the Director of the Mint, 1891, told of the distribution of silver dollars at the San Francisco Mint: In mint July 1, 1890, $28,987,782; coinage of the fiscal year, 9,350,373; in mint July 1, 1891, 36,362,220; distributed from mint: 1,975,935.
A Bag of Dollars Makes the News The Numismatist, March 1919, printed this item:
"A sack of 1,000 silver dollars just delivered to a San Francisco bank has been in the vault of the Sub-Treasury since the day the coins were minted, October 21, 1891. The bank figures that if the money had been drawing interest from the date it was coined, the sack would by now be worth $3,000 instead of $1,000."
It must have been a slow month for news at The Numismatist, for bags of this general type were constantly delivered to various banks!