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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Conder101, post: 6468239, member: 66&quot;]For starters there are errors in your assumptions and in the table.&nbsp; First they did NOT all fave the same percentage of silver.&nbsp; The flowing hair and draped bust dollars were .8924 fine not .900 so to make them have the proper amount of silver in them the weight was higher 416 grains.&nbsp; When the .900 fineness became standard in 1837 that reduced the weight to 412 1/2 grains.&nbsp; The 8 TF Morgan was the same weight as all the other Morgans (412 1/2 grains), not the same as the Trade Dollar (420 grains).</p><p><br /></p><p>And the .900 fine silver was alloyed with copper not tin.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>The dollar weighs 412.5 grains of .900 fine silver.&nbsp; 412.5 times .9 = 371.25 grains of pure silver = .77344 troy oz.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>As for how we got that weight, the most common silver coin in the colonies and the early US was the Spanish milled dollar or 8 Reales.&nbsp; We wished our dollar to trade on par with that coin.&nbsp; So several milled dollars were assayed to determine an average silver content and the result was 371.25 grains of pure silver per dollar so that was adopted for the definition of what a dollar was.&nbsp; And since at the time the silver/gold ratio was believed to be 15 to one the gold dollar was defined as 24.75 grains of pure gold.&nbsp; A few years later it was realized the market silver/gold ratio was actually 15.98 to 1 and the gold dollar definition was changed to 23.22 grains of pure gold.&nbsp; This reduced the weight of the gold coinage.&nbsp; Those official definitions have remained ever since.</p><p><br /></p><p>It is also why the double eagle weighs what it does. 23.22 grains per dollar times 20 dollars = 464.4 grains of pure gold divided by the fineness of .900 = 516 grains of standard gold alloy.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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