Q. David Bowers
Die breakage, although exact figures are lacking, was very high for the 1921 Peace dollar. On January 3, 1922, Chief Engraver George T. Morgan wrote to de Francisci as follows; (After reading this text, Thomas K. DeLorey, long-time student of coins and researcher for ANACS, commented: "I have only seen one 1921 Peace dollar with a die break, yet they are common on 1921 PDS Morgan, 1922 PDS Peace, and 1923 PDS dollars. 1 suspect that the reports of excess die breakage are a tale created to justify the change in design, and not a real reason." Undated note to the author, received September 17, 1992.)
Today by American Express I send to you 50 of the Peace dollars. I know you will be disappointed, but the pressure necessary to bring up the work was so destructive to the dies that we got tired of putting new dies in.
In changing the date to 1922 I took the opportunity of making a slight change in the curvature of the ground. I anticipate at least 20 tons less pressure will be required to bring up the design. This could double the life of the die. I send you an early strike of the 1922.
George Morgan made a number of changes to the dies for 1922 in an effort to correct the problem. As noted, on January 3 of the new year de Francisci was sent an "early strike" (a Proof?) to show the minor alterations that had taken place. Regular coinage then commenced, but was soon stopped because the dies were getting only a few thousand coins per pair, and the breakage was nearly as bad as the year before. (Although in a self-fulfilling prophecy, massive Treasury purchases of silver during the 1878-1904 era created an extra demand and raised the market price above what it would have been without government activity.)
The Pittman Act mandated the coinage of 270 million coins, of which less than 90 million had been made in 1921 of both designs, most of these being of the Morgan type. While the Morgan design coins were, apparently, made without incident, the die breakage problem with the 1921 Peace dollars was unacceptable. The Engraving Department at the Mint foresaw using thousands of dies for the new Peace coinage! A conference was held at the Mint to decide what to do next. It was decided, apparently without any input from de Francisci, that the relief of the design would have to be radically lowered so that normal coinage could take place.
Morgan now reduced the height of the designs on both sides. It is sometimes said that he did this by pounding with a board on both sides but this story was apparently spread by an enemy of Morgan's who did not understand the process by which dies are made. It is more likely that Morgan simply made new plasters and reduced them on the Janvier in the regular way. Among other things, the Janvier machine can alter the relief of a sculpted image. (Perhaps the "pounding" episode was a joke that backfired.)
De Francisci was called to the Mint in late January 1922 to supervise the reduction of the new models on the Janvier machine (which had replaced the Hill model of 1867), but this was merely window-dressing as the real work had already been done. Within a matter of days after that, coinage had resumed and was to continue at a very strong pace throughout 1922 and succeeding years until it stopped, for a time, in 1928.
Proof high-relief 1922 Peace dollars are known and of extraordinary rarity, with Walter H. Breen estimating that from six to eight are presently known. None of the regular (business strike) high reliefs of 1922 were officially delivered, and all were supposed to have been melted. If the piece sent to de Francisci is from the business strike coinage press and not a Proof made on a medal press, there may be circulation issues of the 1922 (type of 1921) floating around in some collections and as yet unrecognized; indeed, what may be one of these, graded VF-30, is listed in the registry of 1922 high-relief dollars later in this text.
A small number of Proofs (3) do exist for the low-relief issue of 1922. These were probably made by or for Morgan. Two of these appeared in the Norweb Collection sale and were accompanied by information to the effect that these were originally sold privately for Morgan's personal benefit in 1922.
All of the required Pittman Act silver was purchased by November 1924, but it was not until the spring of 1928 that the last bullion was coined into dollars. Denver struck no dollars in that year. All of them were coined at the Philadelphia and San Francisco mints by June 30. The 1928 Philadelphia coinage is perhaps the only scarce issue after 1921, with only 360,000 struck. The Pittman bullion, to satisfy legal requirements concerning silver certificates, was struck as quickly as possible but not to the point that coinage of other denominations was disrupted.
Peace Dollars of Later Years
In June 1934 President Franklin D. Roosevelt, as part of his ongoing efforts to end the Depression, pushed through Congress a bill mandating the purchase of newly-mined silver at a price (later raised) above the market. The Treasury paid 77 cents per ounce at a time when silver brought well below that elsewhere. It was exactly the same principle that had operated in 1919-1924 for the Pittman silver bullion, but not for the Morgan dollar of 1878-1904 as in that case the Treasury had paid only market price."
Chief Engraver John Sinnock slightly modified the die style of 1922. From this slightly altered design about seven million Peace dollars were struck in 1934-1935. The last of this particular issue was struck in the autumn of 1935 at Philadelphia. Among all issues of Peace dollars, the 1934-S is somewhat scarce in Uncirculated grade though easily found in ordinary condition up to about VF.
During World War II 50 million silver dollars were melted for the war effort (including the famous nuclear experiments with the Manhattan Project at the University of Chicago), but it is unknown how many Peace dollars were affected. This time Congress did not stipulate that the dollars had to be replaced.By now all realized that the action would be a waste of valuable manpower at the mints.
In the early 1960s the collecting and investing communities (mostly the latter) began to hoard silver dollars by the bag (1,000 pieces per cloth bag). By the end of spring 1964, the vast Treasury hoard was but a memory. In the same year there arose a demand for a new coinage of silver dollars, primarily from casino operators in Nevada wanting coins for their dollar slot machines now that silver dollars were no longer available at banks.
Congress duly passed, on August 3, 1964, an act providing for coinage of up to 45 million silver dollars. Striking of new coins of the Peace design began in May 1965, and 316,076 were actually minted before President Lyndon Johnson halted coinage and ordered those on hand to be melted. As the coins had not been officially delivered according to legal requirements, any pieces that might have escaped the watchful eye of Denver Mint inspectors were subject to confiscation by the Secret Service. For this reason none has appeared in public, though rumors of this or that specimen continue to make the rounds among collectors.
The abortive 1965 coinage, using the 1964 date, was a fitting end to a silver coinage whose beginning in 1794 had been steeped in secrecy. The illegal standard of 1794 was thus counterbalanced by a coin that might or might not exist struck years later in 1965 but bearing the wrong date (1964). Alexander Hamilton's 1791 recommendation of 371.25 grains of pure silver in each dollar struck for circulation was no more.