Another dumb question.

In 1880 8.9 Million S mint silver dollars were made.

Starting in 1878, the mintages of other denominations dropped.

In 1880, only 8,400 half dollars were minted. A decline from 8.3 million halves in 1877.

Mintages on the halves were low until 1891. From 79-90 less than 12,000 halves were minted each year.

I see the same story on the quarters. 1879-1890.

However there were plenty of dimes made from 1879-1890. In 1883 7.3 million were minted.

Besides the quarters and halves, most of the other denominations enjoyed healthy mintage numbers.

So what is the reason for the shortage of halves and quarters in 1879-1890?

 

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I am not sure of the process or how it was determined but the mints role was to supply coins for commerce, in years where the economy was deflating, banks and others were not calling for coins from the mint, so in many years some denominations were not minted at all.

Most recently, there were no nickels minted in 31, or quarters. There probably should not have been any coins minted in 2009 except for cents and bullion and collector issues.

The silver dollars were minted according to law, not from demand.

 

Part of it was simply due to the politics of the period. There are several books written about the Comstock Lode and the Coinage Act of 1873.

Chris

 

The only dumb question is the one that isn't asked.

 

Actually a featured article about this was published in COINS magazine this month.

 

Something along the lines of the government striking a deal to mint a certain number of Morgans when the country did not need them. Perhaps why most of them sat in bags for a hundred years. Doesn't sound much different than the government now!

 

Most of the coins that had left the country during the Civil War came flooding back into the country around 1873/74 as the value of silver fell and the value of the metal making the worth more as coins. By the late 1870's the dimes had probably been well absorbed but quarters and halves were "big" money and the returning supply probably pretty well satisfied demand. Add to this the fact the Bland-Allison Act in 1878 required much of the mints coining capacity be dedicated to silver dollar production. So production not dedicated to dollar production was probably reserved mostly for 1 to 10 cent coinage as they were the most needed by the average person.