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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Conder101, post: 2386476, member: 66&quot;]They were legal tender in the US for amounts up to $5 from 1873 to sometime in 1876, but i the early years they probably didn&#039;t circulate much in the US&nbsp; because they were worth more than a dollar in trade overseas.&nbsp; But with silver falling in price around late 1874 or 1875 the face value of the coin exceeded the silver value and they were now worth more as a dollar in the US than as silver in China.&nbsp; At that point they started coming back home and entering circulation.</p><p><br /></p><p>Add to that the fact that after the Act of 1873, holders of silver that brought the metal to the mint could only receive either bars, worth silver value, or Trade dollars with a face value greater than the silver value.&nbsp; This encouraged people to deposit silver, get trade dollars and then spend them here.&nbsp; The government tried to prevent this by requiring depositors to sign document promising to export the coins and not use them locally, but that almost certainly didn&#039;t work.&nbsp; So in 1876 the legal tender status of the Trade dollar was removed completely.&nbsp; After that point they would normally only be accepted at a discount to face value in commerce.&nbsp; That acted as a real brake on them circulating.&nbsp; Businesses would still buy them at bullion value (less than face value) and then pay them out to their workers at face value.&nbsp; The workers couldn&#039;t refuse them without losing their jobs, but when they spend them they suffered the loss from face to bullion value.&nbsp; Then the next week the business owners would buy them again from the merchants/banks and start the process over again.[/quote][/quote][/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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