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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;The_Cave_Troll, post: 114113, member: 1674&quot;]the biggest reason is that the didn&#039;t circulate.&nbsp; They were the largest denomination of silver coin minted and mostbanks kept bags of them in the vault as a way to back their currency.&nbsp; Since each bank issued it&#039;s own currency, then each bank had to maintain a stock of bullion in case depositors needed to cash in their paper note for coins.&nbsp; Also, because the price of silver was very close to the value of silver in the coins of the period it was common for the price of silver to exceed the face value of the coins.&nbsp; This led to mass melting of circulated coins, but for the most part bust halves avoided this fate.&nbsp; Since they were in bags in bank vaults they were routinely valued by their weigh, not their face value, so there was no need to melt them.&nbsp; This is why they are so common now, eaven in uncirculated grades.&nbsp; One could relatively easily put together an uncirculated date set, which would be much more difficult to do for any of the smaller denominations on the same period.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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