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Wednesday, April 22, 2009

An introductory guide to silver dollar coins

By Ray Humphreys

The very first lot of silver coins to be produced in America took place in 1794. since that time the US government has minted several noteworthy batches at different points in it's history.

despite what the name indicates, Silver dollars do not actually have to be dollars. This is simply a term that somehow stuck and is used to refer to all coins made from silver in the USA.

Conversely, there are some people who hold firm to the idea that only those coins minted with a face value of one dollar can be termed as silver dollars, even though in actual fact those coins are worth a lot more than that in modern times.

The 1804 is one of the earliest and perhaps the most famous of US silver coins to date. One interesting thing about it is that it was actually made in 1804 although it has the date 1803 printed on it's face.

Due to its initial popularity the 1804 silver dollar remained in circulation for many years and was actually reproduced some 30 years later. At this time the US had just begun its ascendancy as an international player with diplomatic relations with other countries all over the world. This coin was often given as an official gift to visiting dignitaries.

Today there are only fifteen silver dollar coins in the world that bare the date of 1804 which makes them incredibly special. In fact about a decade ago one of these coins was sold at an auction for almost four million dollars.

The seated liberty dollar is another special set of coins that was introduced in the year 1840. It was minted in relatively large quantities during the initial years but the minting steadily declined with the introduction of newer coins.

During most of the 1800's the value of one dollar was greater than the cost of the silver used to mint a single coin. Once this changed however, and the value of the raw silver reached over a dollar the days of the silver dollars became numbered.

From that time onwards it became a trade coin which was used in the Orient. By the 70s the coin came back into circulation as the price of silver declined.

The trade dollar first came into appearance in the Us at a time when the major European powers were also circulating their own silver coins. Spain, France and Britain were all minting their own silver coins at this time.

The Trade Dollar was far more valuable than the average dollar coin. This is because it was made using a higher silver content. This was purposely done in order to bring it at par with the global standard.

Because the US had an increasingly growing amount of trade with several Asian countries at the time the trade dollar was minted, most of the dollars ended up in Asian countries.

These dollar coins were never circulated inside the United States. However they did have a face value of $5 in the market. - 23229

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