What a SHAME!!!

It depends on when it was done because that would determine whether it was viewed as an "object of value". Before around the turn of the 20th century, possibly even a little later that "value" would have been about $2.

Back then it didn't matter that this was a low mintage 1857 D dollar, almost no one collected by mintmark at that time. The only thing that mattered was the date and an 1857 D dollar wasn't worth any more than an 1857 dollar. Mintmark collecting wasn't really introduced to the country until the publication of Augustus Heaton's pamphlet on mintmarks in 1893, and it didn't really catch on in a big way until the coin boards of the thirtites. Before Heatons work if you wanted to know what date and mintmark combinations existed or how many were made you had to go back through the annual Mint reports and see what coins each mint made each year. A publication that listed all the coins by denomination, date, mint, and mintage like we have in todays redbook did not exist until Heaton published his pamphlet.

 

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