Q. David Bowers
Morgan dollars released: Following their coinage in March 1878, Morgan dollars were released to the public. Perhaps because the "silver question" had been hotly debated for years, perhaps because the silver dollar was the largest silver coin of the realm in regular circulation, perhaps because the current trade dollar had been the subject of so much bad press, perhaps because it had been many years since silver dollars actually circulated hand to hand, and perhaps for other reasons as well, the Morgan dollar became the focus for public comment. Everyone, it seemed, was moved to render an opinion on the design, much as would happen 14 years later when the 1892 World's Columbian Exposition commemorative half dollar was released.
A good synopsis of prevailing sentiment at the time is provided by John Willem, one of the best numismatic historians America has ever seen, when he wrote the following as part of his definitive study, The United States Trade Dollar:
After the Morgan silver dollar, popularly called the "Buzzard dollar" after the public's opinion of the eagle on the reverse, became a reality, there was great confusion as to why trade dollars were only worth 90 cents on the dollar for some merchants, and would only be redeemed by the government or banks at bullion value, when a standard Morgan dollar, weighing less, was worth a full dollar. Many complaints were sent to Washington.
Other comments, some of which are reprinted later in this text, described Morgan's eagle as a "British grouse," "pelican-bat of the wilderness," "turkey," "sick bird," and "hen."
Dollar not worth a dollar: Another problem is the one just quoted from Willem: the new Morgan dollar was not worth a dollar. The silver in the Morgan dollar, unlike the Liberty Seated dollars of yesteryear in their time, was worth less than the face value of each coin. The concept of fiat money was not trusted, that of fiduciary money not understood; paper currency was often discounted and risked being discredited, and the idea that the largest U.S. silver coin was worth less than its bullion price was not acceptable to many. Much appeared in cartoons and in articles about "93-cent dollars," "90-cent dollars," etc.
The silver question: The "silver question" was a debate that would not go away. In one form or another it lived on and on, reaching a climax in the early 1890s, when countless articles, pamphlets, and books were written on the merits of gold versus silver, or silver versus gold, or silver and/or gold versus paper money, etc.
Nobody understood (or would admit it if they did) that the issue was how much more subsidy the government would give to wealthy silver mine owners while their mountainous output kept increasing in volume and declining in price (as reckoned in gold dollars). The value of gold, reckoned in silver dollars, kept rising, and after 1890, the supply available for paying Treasury obligations suffered. "Mankind shall not be crucified on a cross of gold," proclaimed William Jennings Bryan in the presidential campaign of 1896, but he did not make it to the White House. In 1900 gold and silver debate was stirred up again as political fodder, but again Bryan fell short of votes. After that time, the question died away as other topics came into focus-areas of concernsuch as pure food and drugs, trusts and monopolies, etc.
Numismatic Information
What to call the new dollar: In its own day, what we now call the Morgan dollar was popularly called the Bland dollar, after Richard P. Bland of 1878 Bland-Allison Act renown. For example, the American Journal of Numismatics, October 1886, carried this item: "The head of the goddess of the Bland dollar, some cynically observant person points out, has a cheek out of all proportion to the other parts of the face." Numismatists who did not call it the Bland dollar were apt to call it the Liberty Head dollar. The Morgan dollar nomenclature was slow to catch on and is mainly a product of the mid-twentieth century, although it was used at the Philadelphia Mint as early as April 1878, as per the letter quoted below.
The following letter from Mint Superintendent James Pollock to A. D. Gilkison, a coin collector in Indiana; gives some basicinformation pertaining to mint marks, and important to the present text, refers to the new coin as the "Morgan" dollar: (Letter in the Bowers and Merena Galleries Reference Collection; acquired from Dennis Forgue.)
The Mint of the United States, at Philadelphia, Penn. April 11, 1878 Sir.
Your postal card of the 8th inst. has been received. All U.S. gold and silver coins made at the San Francisco Mint are distinguished by a small letter S; those made at the Carson City Mint, Nevada, by the letters CC; and those at New Orleans by the letter O. The coinage of the parent Mint at Philadelphia has no such distinguishing mark.
I send you some Mint Circulars. We have no publication with regard to the Morgan dollar;
Very Respectfully,
(signed) Jas. Pollock, Sup.
The "feather question": Although I can find no record of the question being posed in any numismatic or public article in 1878, in recent years the "feather question" concept has arisen to explain why some 1878 Morgan dollars have eight tail feathers and others have seven. Still Others have seven tail feathers with some earlier feathers peeking out from beneath their tips.
According to popular modern conventional wisdom, among those citizens in 1878 who examined the new Morgan dollar with a critical eye was someone, who then told others, etc., who claimed that real eagles inthe wild do not have eight or any other even number of tail feathers but, instead, have an odd number-as one feather at the tip is longer. Per the story, this was enough to persuade the powers at the Mint to redesign the Morgan dollar hubs from eight feathers to seven. Rather than waste dies already made e with eight tail feathers, some were overpunched with a seven tail feathers hub, creating the "7/8 tail feathers" variety.
Backing up this cute little tail-tale is the existence of the coins themselves: 1878 dollars occur with eight, "seven over eight" (it has been said), and seven tail feathers.
First of all, what about our national bird, the bald eagle? What can it tell us about its own feathers?
Seeking the answer to this, I learned eagles in real life are apt to have neither eight nor seven tail feathers. After a discussion with Eric P. Newman on the subject of 1878 dollars and the "feather question," 'I told him that I was going to Contact an expert on eagles and attempt to settle the matter. Well, Eric quickly informed me that the Raptor Center (raptor = bird of prey; an eagle is a raptor) in St. Louis could provide the information. Soon thereafter, a letter from E.P.N. arrived in the mail with the following information: (Letter to the author, August 20, 1992.)
One does crazy things in numismatic research. For the benefit of your book, I had the caretaker at the Raptor Center here count the feathers on the tail of the bald eagle who lives there. He has 12. I obtained a photocopy of a book on rap tors, and it agrees. A copy of a page is enclosed.
[The nook, Falconry and Hawking, by Philip Glasier, noted this:] "Most birds of prey ... have 12 tail feathers .... The tail feathers ate numbered one to six on each side, from the outer edge inwards."
The Glasier volume went on to relate that such a bird molts, or sheds her feathers to replace them with new ones. However, she does not shed them all atonce, or else it could not fly. Normally, a raptor drops one pair of tail feathers at a time, and not until the new feathers are half-grown does she drop another pair. So in effect she is seldom short ofmore than ... one and a half feathers in each side of her tail at anyone time.
Equipped with this knowledge, any future engraver wishing to recreate the Morgan design and avoid criticism from ornithologists would do well to show the eagle with 12 regular-length tail feathers; or 10 regular feathers plus two in a stage of growth from zero to half-size; or, immediately after the preceding feathers reach half-size and two more regular feathers are dropped, then eight regular and two half-size feathers. By this reasoning, the count never drops below 10, although sometimes two of the 10 can he incompletely grown. At the risk of getting too far away from numismatics, I end this subject here.
Debunking the "feather question": The problems with the conventional wisdom that George T. Morgan started out with an eight-feathers dollar design, but public complaint forced the Mint to redesign the reverse to seven feathers, and not to waste dies a number of eight-feathers dies Were over-punched with seven-feathers dies are several and serious:
• To begin with, it seems that Ceorge T. Morgan, from the very beginning, wanted seven tail feathers. The pattern half dollars he made in 1877-before Morgan dollars were even a twinkle in the eye of Allison, Bland, Linderman, Pollock, or anyone else-all had seven tail feathers! These include Judd-1508 To Judd-1511 inclusive, as listed in United States Pat-tern, Experimental and Trial Pieces.