Morgan dollars

Silver Morgan dollar from 1883

The Morgan dollar is a 1 US dollar coin made of silver (900/1000 fine, 26.7g, 38.1mm), which was minted from 1878 to 1904 and then again in 1921. The designation Morgan dollar goes back to the medalist Morgan. Morgan created the image of the goddess of freedom, which characterizes the coin and is based on Greek models. The neck section of the goddess of freedom is signed with an M (Morgan).

The $ 1 silver coins have been minted since 1794. It started with the Flowing Hair Silver Dollars , which show Miss Liberty with flowing hair (1794–1803). These coins are now extremely rare and extremely valuable. In 2013, a one-dollar "flowing hair" coin from 1794 sold for more than 10 million US dollars. After a second minting period from 1840 to 1873, the Morgan dollar followed from 1878 to 1904 or 1921. This was followed by the Peace Dollar in 1921 (until 1935).

After only dollar silver coins had been minted for foreign trade in the previous years ( trade dollars with free minting ), the Blandbill of February 11, 1878 brought the turning point. The silver prices were falling at the time, the Scandinavian countries and the German Empire had switched to the gold standard . The US was officially bimetallic . The new law stipulated that 2-4 million whole dollar coins of silver (900/1000 fine) were to be minted every month. The coins were overvalued compared to the gold dollar and were therefore traded at a discount abroad . Within the USA, however , the need for means of payment meant that bimetallism was able to hold up with an implicit value ratio of gold to silver of 15.5.

In 1884, however, the high issues meant that the coins could no longer be sold at home. On the basis of the Shermanbill , from 1890 onwards, large quantities of silver were bought from US mines to support the continued fall in the price of silver and were used in the years to come. The silver purchase stopped in 1893. The state suffered damage of over 450 million dollars by 1894 because the silver was bought too expensively and the Morgan dollars minted from it were only spent until 1904. Then the minting of Morgan dollars initially ended. In 1921 the coin was briefly minted again.

Mint mark

• without ( Philadelphia )
• CC (Carson City)
• S (San Francisco)
• O (New Orleans)
• D (Denver)

The mint marks are on the back, just above "DO" of DOLLAR

source

• Friedrich von Schrötter, Nikolaus Bauer, Kurt Regling , Arthur Suhle , Richard Vasmer , Julius Wilcke (Hrsg.): Dictionary of coinage. de Gruyter, Berlin a. a. 1930 (2nd, unchanged reprint. 1970), p. 151.

Web links

Commons : Morgan Dollars  - Collection of Images, Videos, and Audio Files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Unique silver coin brings in ten million dollars. In: Spiegel Online. January 25, 2013, accessed December 11, 2014 . 
2. ^ Tyll Kroha (1977) Lexicon article "Dollar" in Lexikon der Numismatik, Bertelsmann Lexikon-Verlag, p. 117 f.