Message:

<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Vess1, post: 499026, member: 13650&quot;]I was talking with a guy the other day and we were making rough guesses at what the actual population of a given Morgan date and MM, (standard business strikes), would still be in existence today.&nbsp;&nbsp; Basically rough guesses at the percentages left anywhere in existence.&nbsp;&nbsp; What&#039;s left that hasn&#039;t been buried, melted or lost forever.</p><p><br /></p><p>&nbsp; I remembered reading something in the Red Book about some act that made them melt down a bunch of Morgans at some point in time.&nbsp;&nbsp; So I read it and it says the Pittman Act of 1918 caused 270,232,722 Morgans to be melted down.</p><p><br /></p><p>&nbsp; I added up all the mintage figures and came up with a little over 570 million total minted, up to 1904.&nbsp; Which is key because the 1921s wouldn&#039;t have been in existence when the melt down went into effect. </p><p><br /></p><p>&nbsp; So you take into account the 270+ million melted down in 1918 and we can note that, at maximum only about 300 million pre-1921 Morgans could possibly exist today.&nbsp; They melted 47% of them!&nbsp;&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>&nbsp; BTW, if anyone&#039;s curious, that would be 15,916,707 pounds of Morgans!&nbsp; Or, 7,958 tons.&nbsp; About 318 modern day truck loads.&nbsp;&nbsp; That&#039;s 208,889,894 troy ounces of pure silver.&nbsp; About 2.3 billion dollars worth of silver by todays price.&nbsp;&nbsp; All melted for bullion.&nbsp;&nbsp; (We&#039;ll never know the cost of manufacturing, transporting and melting it all again.)</p><p><br /></p><p>&nbsp; Anyway.......&nbsp;&nbsp; I was wondering if anybody had any info on what were the bulk of the coins that hit the melting pots and where was all this done?&nbsp; Were they melting at all the mints?&nbsp; Was it even done at the mints?&nbsp; &nbsp; It&#039;s probably safe to assume that some years took a huge hit and bore the brunt of the melting while other years may have (for the most part) escaped unscathed.&nbsp;&nbsp; Does anybody even have a remote idea?&nbsp;&nbsp; Were worn coins targeted or did it even matter?</p><p><br /></p><p>&nbsp; I ask strictly out of curiosity because it sure makes things interesting.&nbsp; An 1893-O for example had a mintage of 300,000.&nbsp;&nbsp; From there, we don&#039;t really know if 5% or 62% of those could have been melted.&nbsp; Just from this act.&nbsp;&nbsp; Not even taking into account how many of them have been lost or destroyed around the world.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

Your name or email address:

Do you already have an account?

• No, create an account now.
• Yes, my password is:
• Forgot your password?

Stay logged in