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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;johnmilton, post: 3442901, member: 101855&quot;]They carried their coins around in their pockets or purses. Women and probably a lot of men used those little bags that snapped at the top to holder their money. There was the joke about miser who would open up his little purse and have a moth fly out of it.</p><p><br /></p><p>The mint was very concerned about the size of the gold dollar. The Type I gold dollars only had a diameter of 13mm. One proposed solution was to issue gold dollars with a hole in the center, but the mint didn’t have the equipment to mass-produce those pieces. Another idea to lower the alloy from 90% gold to something less. That idea was shelved because the coins looked to brassy which was an open invitation to counterfeiters.</p><p><br /></p><p><b>A &quot;ring dollar&quot; photo courtesy Heritage Auctions</b></p><p><b><br /></b></p><p><b>[ATTACH=full]914177[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]914178[/ATTACH] </b></p><p><b><br /></b></p><p>The ultimate change was to increase the diameter from 13 to 15mm in mid 1854. It may have helped, but along came the Civil War in 1861 which ended the circulation of gold coins. After the war you could not trade your Federal Government notes for gold on a one for one basis. They would not be brought into line until the late 1870s. By then the large gold, especially the $20 gold pieces were the most popular gold coins, and the dollar fell by the wayside.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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