Reply to Thread

Message:: [QUOTE="Conder101, post: 3032420, member: 66"]Thomas Jefferson, by presidential order, ended the striking of silver dollars in 1806. This discontinuance lasted until 1836, by which time efforts were already being undertaken within the mint "to redesign the U. S. coinage to" make it more attractive" using the work of Christian Gobrecht based on designs by Thomas Sully. These efforts had been underway since late 1835. In 1836 authorization to create dollar coins was once again received and it was decided to start the new coin design with those. The experiments resulted in the Gobrecht dollars of 1836, 38, and 39. The 1836 is struck to the 416 grain standard current at the time, the 1838 and 39 are struck to the 412 1/2 grain standard adopted in 1837. When the seated liberty dollar as we normally think of it was adopted in 1840 the flying Eagle reverse was discarded in favor of the standing Eagle we are familiar with. Dollar coins were used in America before the 1840s, the Spanish milled Dollar was in common use during that entire period. The mint did NOT buy up foreign silver and recoin it. They had no authorization to buy silver in the open market until the bullion fund was created in the coinage act of 1837. Before that time they were dependent upon people and businesses to deposit silver at the mint for coinage. If no deposits were brought in, the mint stood idle except for production of copper coinage, which was struck on government account.[/QUOTE]