Hold The Train - Barber or Gobrecht?

I been my whole life believing that Gobrecht was the trade dollar engraver. Am I wrong? Was it Barber?

 

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All I can tell you is that Chapter 30 in Walter Breen's Encyclopedia is titled "William Barbers Trade Dollars
(1873-85) James

 

Randy, given that Christian Gobrecht died in 1844, it is pretty unlikely that he had any part in the design of the Trade Dollar. Can we rule out engraving from beyond the grave?

 

I reckon probably so!….. Man I been wrong on this one a mighty long time!

 

You probably got confused because people give Gobrecht credit for the seated liberty design. Since the Trade Dollar is an offshoot of the seated liberty, he sort of gets credit for that design too.

 

Redbook says...

Robert Scot designed the Flowing Hair Dollar and Draped Bust Dollar.

Christian Gobrecht designed the Gobrecht Dollar and the Liberty Seated Dollar. [wiki says...He also designed the obverse sides for the Liberty head (aka Coronet Head) Quarter Eagle, Half Eagle, and Eagle gold coins, as well as the "braided hair" type Half cent and Large cent coins.]

William Barber designed the Trade Dollar.

George T. Morgan designed the Morgan Dollar.

Anthony de Francisci designed the Peace Dollar.

 

Barber designed the Trade Dollar. He was about 40 years after Gobrecht. Gobrecht was deceased before the Trade Dollar was designed but the early Silver Dollars all have a similar design to them so it’s easy to get confused. Check out your Red Book and you’ll see the designs are very much alike.