This site contains information concerning the devaluation of the trade dollar, and song lyrics from the period. http://numismatics.org/pocketchange/a-trade-dollar-song-and-chorus-1883/ I found it interesting.
I recall @Randy Abercrombie saying he used to tour with a band back in the day. Maybe he could put a classic rock spin to it. . Pink Floyd's Money.
@Randy Abercrombie Wow! I'll have that picture in my mind every time I read one of your posts. It will be tough to "unremember"
Great pic, looks like you're getting down on bass with some boogie woogie! As far as that song goes, it actually looks a bit boring as it's a waltz. Not only that but it's a bit racist, look at the chorus below. I mean I'm always happy to come across music that's related to coins but "Trade Dollar", is a really old one. I'm sure Randy can figure it out tho'! All bass players play at least a little bit of guitar! j/k Chorus With eighty-five cents on the dollar Paid out to him night and by day What shall we do with this dollar? Just ask what the Chinamen say.
All bass players play at least a little bit of guitar! I never could make that “G” chord stick! Wrote several songs a million years ago. Won’t find a “G” in any of em. I was the definition of a frustrated guitar player. Made the best of it though.
Racist songs: oh, man, one night several years ago I was invited to speak to a Sons of Norway lodge in northern Minnesota. As part of the evening's program, they sang from their (very old) Sons of Norway songbooks. I almost swallowed my tongue when we sang "Old Black Joe." Horrible lyrics. Why they even kept those song books around is beyond me. Thankfully, their more recent song books have eliminated "Joe" and a couple of others. Steve
One thing not mentioned in the article, when the government did agree to redeem the trade dollars they had to be "unmutilated" which meant the chopmarked coins were not acceptable for redemption.
One thing left unexplained in all this discussion is WHY anyone with silver bullion would want it coined into Trade Dollars @ 420 grains to the dollar when it took only 412&1/2 grains to strike a perfectly spendable ordinary dollar — or only c. 386 grains to have it struck in even-more-spendable minor silver coins. Had the mints stopped accepting specie for coinage from Joe Citizen?
Because you couldn't take your silver to the mint and get standard silver dollars anymore. The mint ended the free coinage of silver in 1853. If you had silver you could either sell it in the marketplace, which most of the time gave you less than a dollar for the amount of silver in a standard dollar, or sell it to the mint at about the same rate. IF they wanted it. After 1853 the government bought silver and produced coins for their own account and they made the money on the seigniorage. The trade dollar was once again free coinage of silver. The early ones were mostly made for export. The Chinese would only sell for silver, not gold, and the traders had to pay a premium for the preferred spanish/mexican pesos. After about 1875 the silver in a trade dollar was worth less than a dollar, but it was still "free coinage" so you could take the mint 80 cents worth of silver to the mint and they would give you back "dollars" free of charge! and at that time they were still legal tender in the US. Once they were no longer legal tender and the mint would no longer make them except for export, the mine owners kept bringing in the silver, saying it was for export, get their trade dollars, and then circulate them here anyway. 20 cent profit on every coin passed.
