Cool book I picked up

Point?

You have an old book?

 

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Cool book Bill.

Now if I could just get my flux capacitor to work.....

 

Interesting regarding the page for Trade Dollars.

Even if these are Mehl's 'buy' prices, it says $0.75 buy for dollar coins.

Hoping one is born every day, I suppose!

 

Holy cow. I wish I was alive like GDJMSP and Treashunt back then... ;-)

 

Yes, de-monetized dollar coins which were readily available from brokers at 80 cents on the dollar. Companies would buy them up in large numbers and use them to pay their employees at what amounted to a 20% discount. Since the coins had no actual value other than what a storekeeper would accept for them (usually about the same 75 cents Mehl was paying) the worker took it in the shorts twice. The shopkeepers then sold them back to the company so that they could be used again next Friday. It was even worse in company towns where the stores were actually owned by the company which could then cut out the middle man. It wasn't until 1965 that Congress again made them legal tender at $1.00.

Shampoo, Rinse, Repeat.

 

...even though they contained almost 2% more silver than the standard circulating silver dollar, which in turn contained more silver than $1.00 worth of halves, quarters or dimes.

This seems like an interesting counterexample to Gresham's Law. By "hard-money" standards, the Trade dollar was "better money" than the Morgan, which in turn was "better money" than smaller change. Still, nobody wanted them.

 

The alternative would suck!

 

It wasn't that the trade dollars were not good silver. It was the fact that they had no legal tender status requiring that they be accepted at face value as other silver coinage did. For that reason, they traded on the basis of melt value which ran from a low of 37 cents following the Panic of 1893 to a high of 1.06 cents in 1919. Overall, the average melt value was approximately 82 cents.

Edit to change year for highest melt value. I missed it on the chart.

 

I think the only coin collector alive in those days that I can think of is Eric Newman if you see the prices he paid on the envelopes of his coins compared to what there selling for today it's amazing. Not at all a bad return on his investment

 

You guys beat me to it on the trades. The read on the trades in bowers silver dollar encyclopedia is fascinating. Until the. 30s and 40s NOBODY wanted them!!

 

One can, indeed, learn something new everyday. Thanks, ok.

I didn't know Trades were demonetized for much of the 20th century.

Curiouser and curiouser...

 

Compare the prices to the income ratios below, and figure what % of your current income you spend on coins and what you would have free in 1929.

Family Income Distribution in 1929

2.3% had an income of over $10.000
8% had income over $5,000
71% had incomes of less than $2,500
60% had incomes of less than$2,000
42+% had incomes of less than$1,500
21% had incomes of less than$ 1,000

Average net farm income
1929=$962
1932=$288

http://historicaltextarchive.com/sections.php?action=read&artid=595

 

Notice how he didn't mention me Frank.......

 

@Endeavor I read "Cook Book" as well...couldn't quit figure out the connection...

 

found this red book at the thrift store today

 

Yall must be hungry

 

That is because you are older than dirt

 

@cletis faye ...yup....always hungry. So much food so little time...