Q. David Bowers
1964 Peace Dollars
by Robert Cohen (Essay created especially for this book.)
Sometimes quoted as the reason for all 1964 Peace Dollars being illegal is that they, like the famous 1933 $20 gold pieces, never reached the stage at the Mint of being counted and bagged. It is also stated that the $20s were struck between April 5 and May 27, 1933 and could not have been legally released because of Franklin Delano Roosevelt forbidding the banks from paying out gold coin. This of course raises another question as to why 1933 $20 coins were struck in the first place. However, back to the 1964 Peace dollars:
As the 1964 Peace silver dollars never reached the stage of being counted and bagged, in my opinion they could not have been legally released. The dollars were accounted for at the Denver Mint on a weight basis only. Consequently, the mintage has always appeared as "Approx. 316,076 pieces struck." Thirty pieces were reserved for assay, 28 being destroyed at the Denver Mint at that time. However, two pieces were sent to Washington where they resided until at least 1970 when they too were destroyed in the Mint testing lab.
Additionally, I have questions as to if they did in fact have a mintmark, and if they did where it was located. I have heard differing stories from persons alleging to have seen these dollar. As you well know we had a date freeze on and the Mint was not concerned with mintmarks, as the Treasury Department was convinced that coin collectors and coin dealers were the cause of an alleged coin shortage. I understand that as dies wore out or broke they were replaced with dies lacking mintmarks. I point to the fact that the San Francisco Assay Office, upon re-commencement of coining operations in mid-1965, struck 196,000,000 Lincoln cents without S mintmarks.
A well-known dealer told me that as he was passing by your table at the 1971 ANA Convention, he saw you looking at a 1964 Peace dollar. He told me of this about 1973, and several times over the next few years.'
I am enclosing a news release issued by the Department of the Treasury, Bureau of the Mint, May 31, 1973, which is self explanatory:
"The Bureau of the Mint today issued the following information in answer to a number of inquiries concerning the authorization, production, destruction and possible recovery of 1964-dated 90 per cent silver dollar coins:
"In 1965, in response to a Treasury request, Congress appropriated $600,000, an amount sufficient to manufacture 45 million silver dollars to carry out the expressed intent of that Congress, however, who by reason of their committee assignments, and having a direct and responsible interest in United States coinage, strongly urged the Treasury not to proceed with the production of these dollars, due to the fast ap-proaching shortage of silver. The Treasury Department determined, therefore, that the Mint would not produce any dollar coins at that time.
"All of the trial strikes for this proposed 1964 dollar were ordered destroyed under the strict supervisory and accounting procedures required by Mint regulations. None reached the final stage of being counted, bagged and issued by the Mint's cashier as finished coins. Should anyone have such trial Mint-struck pieces in his possession, they are the propertyof the United States which it is entitled to recover since the pieces were never issued."
The Year 1964 in History
No brief mention can do justice to events in American history since Peace dollars were last coined in, 1935. American society changed dramatically, several presidents came and went, World War II was fought and won, the atomic age dawned, and the Korean conflict took place. Inflation caused consumer prices to multiply, and by 1964 the social, political, financial arid geographic scenes were vastly different from those of 1935.
In 1964 Lyndon Baines Johnson occupied the White House, succeeding John F. Kennedy, who was assassinated in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963, while riding in a motorcade. On July 2, 1964, President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act. Although the status of blacks in America had improved over the preceding decade, problems persisted and racial violence erupted during the summer in New York, Philadelphia, St. Augustine, and other cities.
On: November 3, 1964, Lyndon B. Johnson was elected president of the United States with Senator Hubert H. Humphrey as his vice president. The losing Republican ticket ran Senator Barry Goldwater for president and William E. Miller for vice president. As of July 1, 1964, California was the most populous state in America, displacing New York. The Warren Commission Report was released on September 27, finding no conspiracy in the death of President Kennedy, and that assassin Lee Harvey Oswald had acted alone.
In Vietnam's Gulf of Tonkin, a United States destroyer was alleged to have been attacked by three North Vietnamese PT boats, leading to congressional approval on August 7 of U.S. military action in Southeast Asia. In Russia, Nikita Khrushchev was stripped of all power on September 13. Khrushchev had earlier said to the United States, "We will bury you!" His successor on October 14 was Leonid Breszhnev. The cold war between Russia and the United States, begun in 1946, raged on.
On January 11, 1964 the surgeon general issued a report that cigarette smoking substantially contributes to the mortality rate. The New York World's Fair was held on the site of the 1939 World's Fair at Flushing Meadow. The most popular exhibit was staged by General Motors.
Go-go girls dancing on platforms or in cages were popular in bars and cabarets all across America. On February 25, Muhammad Ali (Cassius Clay) defeated Sonny Liston and became world heavyweight boxing champion. The much-publicized romance of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton culminated in marriage on March 15, 1964-her fifth but not final trip to the altar. The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. Verranzano Narrows Bridge opened, the world's largest single-span suspension bridge, tra-versing 4,260 feet of water between Staten Island and Brook-lyn, New York.