Why low mintages in 1921?

Robert Todd Lincoln? (Actually he wasn't present at the assassination of his father (He arrived shortly after the shooting), but I do believe he was present when he died.)

The reason for the low mintages was the post war recession. The Pitman Act which required the recoining of all the silver dollars melted down allowed the Mint to continue production without excessive layoffs.

The low mintage of the dollars in 1893-95 (and other coins as well) was the Panic of 1893 brought on by the drain on the US gold reserves created by the Sherman Silver purchase Act of 1890. The draining of the gold reserves to less than the legally required minimum created a situation where the US government was in serious danger of having to default on its obligations that had to be paid in gold. This caused a loss of faith in the dollar, runs on banks, banks calling in loans and it all snowballed into the Panic of 1893, a depression that lasted for three years. Being in a depression, there was low demand for coinage. But as the country came out of the depression the Mint still had all that silver they had purchased which still had to be coined into silver dollars. It took until 1904 to coin all the silver that was purchused under the Sherman Act.

 

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Yes, it was Robert Todd Lincoln. Evidently his life was saved by John Wilkes Booth's brother a few months before the assasination.

Presence at assassinations Robert Lincoln was coincidentally either present or nearby when two presidential assassinations occurred.[SUP][7][/SUP]

• At President James A. Garfield's invitation, Lincoln was at the Sixth Street Train Station in Washington, D.C., where the President was shot by Charles J. Guiteau on July 2, 1881, and was an eyewitness to the event. Lincoln was serving as Garfield's Secretary of War at the time.
• At President William McKinley's invitation, Lincoln was at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, where the President was shot by Leon F. Czolgosz on September 6, 1901, though he was not an eyewitness to the event.

Lincoln was not present at his father's assassination.[SUP][8][/SUP]He arrived at Ford's Theater shortly after his father was shot.
Lincoln himself recognized the frequency of these coincidences. He is said to have refused a later presidential invitation with the comment "No, I'm not going, and they'd better not ask me, because there is a certain fatality about presidential functions when I am present."[SUP][9][/SUP] He did attend the dedication of the Lincoln Memorial, in 1922, in the presence of both President Warren G. Harding and former President William Howard Taft, however. President Harding proceeded to die in office, barely half-way through his only term, fifteen months and one day later; the former president (and then-Chief Justice of the United States) survived another eight years.[SUP][citation needed][/SUP]
[h=2][edit] Robert Lincoln and Edwin Booth[/h]In an odd coincidence, Robert Lincoln was once saved from possible serious injury or death by Edwin Booth, brother of John Wilkes Booth. The incident took place on a train platform in Jersey City, New Jersey. The exact date of the incident is uncertain, but it is believed to have taken place in late 1864 or early 1865, shortly before John Wilkes Booth's assassination of President Lincoln.
Robert Lincoln recalled the incident in a 1909 letter to Richard Watson Gilder, editor of The Century Magazine:

The incident occurred while a group of passengers were late at night purchasing their sleeping car places from the conductor who stood on the station platform at the entrance of the car. The platform was about the height of the car floor, and there was of course a narrow space between the platform and the car body. There was some crowding, and I happened to be pressed by it against the car body while waiting my turn. In this situation the train began to move, and by the motion I was twisted off my feet, and had dropped somewhat, with feet downward, into the open space, and was personally helpless, when my coat collar was vigorously seized and I was quickly pulled up and out to a secure footing on the platform. Upon turning to thank my rescuer I saw it was Edwin Booth, whose face was of course well known to me, and I expressed my gratitude to him, and in doing so, called him by name.
​

Months later, while serving as an officer on the staff of General Ulysses S. Grant, Robert Lincoln recalled the incident to his fellow officer, Colonel Adam Badeau, who happened to be a friend of Edwin Booth. Badeau sent a letter to Booth, complimenting the actor for his heroism. Before receiving the letter, Booth had been unaware that the boy whose life he had saved on the train platform had been the President's son. The incident was said to have been of some comfort to Edwin Booth following his brother's assassination of the President.[SUP][10][/SUP][SUP][11][/SUP]

 

<<The low mintage of the dollars in 1893-95 (and other coins as well) was the Panic of 1893 brought on by the drain on the US gold reserves created by the Sherman Silver purchase Act of 1890.>>


The Sherman Act specified that after July 1, 1890 only enough silver dollars to cover the redemption of Treasury Notes of 1890 in silver would be coined.
Folk in general were redeeming those notes in gold, not silver. That is why mintage was low. I am wondering why 1896 mintage was up to about 20 million.


I consider Treasury Notes of 1890 as also a 20th (as well as 19th) century form of money.
They could not all be retired until silver dollar coinage finished in 1904. ​