The year was 1840. Martin Van Buren was completing a Presidential word ruined by terrible financial depression. This era, called the Hard Times, resulted from time of reckless Western land speculation and the evolution of unregulated banks issuing a flood of unsecured paper money. The prolonged depression ravished America's agriculture and trade and saw hundreds of thousands starving and unemployed.
Inheriting from President Andrew Jackson was the Van Buren Administration's loyalty in "hard money"- silver and gold-as the only unfailing warehouse of assess in compare to shaky thanks and worthless paper money. Expressing this hard money outlook, the Mint strove from 1836 to start a new circulating silver cash. No cash coin had appeared for circulation since 1804, when the last of the 1803-square Draped Bust dollars were released.
Mint Director Robert Maskell Patterson viewed the new money as the pinnacle of America's silver penny. After all, it was a fortunate worker who made even four dollars for a workweek of 76 to 80 hours of unremitting slog in this harsh era. A silver bucked was indeed a keep of wealth to millions of impoverished running-classify Americans.
An admirer of the seated Britannia on British copper penny, Patterson supposed that a seated female character would be just as "emblematic of liberty" as the heads and busts adorning the residents's money. He engaged the great study musician Thomas Sully to make sketching for his seated Liberty. Sully floating her on a sway in Grecian robes, left arm supporting a Union guard with a scroll adorned LIBERTY. Her right arm was raised and detained a staff topped with a small Liberty Cap. The Mint's assistant engraver, Christian Gobrecht, adapted the Sully sketches to bas-relief art fitting for money. The effect was the Seated Liberty create worn at one time or another on half dimes, dimes, 20-cent pieces, quarters, half dollars and dollars from 1836 through 1891.
As reworked by Gobrecht and Robert Ball Hughes, Liberty emerged with a rounded president and her dangling right arm appearing immensely long, her left patently shorter. Pattern obverses of 1836 and 1839 showed no frontage stars but placed the musician's signature in the turf or on the base. Gobrecht's novel reverses of 1836-1839 open a magnificent snatched eagle in a shining or patent sky. Unfortunately, the "No Motto" silver money of 1840-1865 deleted the innovative flying eagle, substituting the unimaginative but relaxed "sandwich lodge" bird with dropped wings and a safeguard on its breast. Liberty had no artist's signature and sat coyly in a crowd of 13 stars with the court placed below. The coins of 1840-65 do not have the motto IN GOD WE TRUST on the converse.
Mintages were commonly small by recent standards, adding only 2,895,673 coins for the cycle. The Philadelphia Minted (no mintmark) struck all dates from 1840 to 1865 inclusive; New Orleans (O), struck dollars square 1846, 1850, 1859 and 1860; the San Francisco Mint (S), struck this category money only in 1859. Mintmarks are located under the lime sphere, between the eagle's feet on the rearrange.
Tiny figures of proofs were struck of most early Philadelphia dates, but they are of great shortage. Numbers struck are not known with certainty and are gone from general handbook books. Proofs were first made for public selling in 1858 when perhaps 80 pieces were struck; later resistant mintages never exceeded 1,000 excluding for 1860, when 1,330 pieces were coined. Proof restrikes were made of the 1851 and 1852 coins. The last No Motto meeting was 1865, with 46,500 company strikes and 500 proofs made. Two 1866-dated No Motto coins are known, but these "fantasy pieces" were made somewhat later for auction to wealthy collectors. In recent years, the reality of a sole resilient 1851-O specimen has come to light, however researchers postulate that this was accidentally made by the Philadelphia "Midnight Minters," (possibly engraver George Eckfeldt and his son, Mint night watchman Theodore). In their swiftness clandestinely to sell the popular 1851 arise, they overstruck a vacant New Orleans Mint cash, the crushed 'O' mintmark still being quietly visible.
Seated dollars never circulated to any great point in the East, although facts were in daily use west of the Mississippi. The Civil War advanced restricted their circulation as the numbers of subject strikes and proofs struck contracted sharply. Bullion buyers snapped up most new silver coins for export as firmly as they were made. These coins were shipped overseas for melting, and the only U.S. Mint result most citizens saw were the new figurine cents. Coin collectors derided the Mint as "Uncle Sam's copperhead factory."
These large silver coins had some odd striking characteristics. The actual view of Liberty's lead may basis feeble detail even on perfect specimens. The fluff on the eagle's leg and the claws may also show mark of weak beat. Wear first appears on Liberty's thigh, right breast and the top of her precede. The tops of the eagle's wings chart. Because of their size and mass, uncirculated coins stored in Mint bags will show scattered link symbols. Proofs regularly are hairlined from the careless conduct of early non-numismatic owners or will show evidence of cleaning by old-time collectors.
Seating Liberty dollars have gained popularity with the utter antenna kinship since the 1970's, when the great U.S. Treasury reserve of silver dollars was liquidated, though few of them early type were found. To collectors more easy with Morgan and Peace dollars issued in the tens of millions, these formerly coins may appear scarce and vague, and indeed they are. Only a small marginal of all Seated Liberty dollars struck remain in existence today. Researcher Weimar W. White estimated that just a division continue-even in low grades.
Assembling an extensive date and mint set in reduce circulated grades is within reason, given patience and perseverance. A total set in mint kingdom will be costly, especially for examples of the 1850-O, 1851, 1852 and 1859-S. A complete run of proofs is a theoretically viable goal but one which will be unrealistic for any but the best-financed antenna.
The Seated Liberty series endless from 1866 to 1873 with the transpose motto IN GOD WE TRUST. The coinage acted of Feb. 12, 1873 ended the silver buck and abolished the official tender condition of all silver dollars struck from 1794 to 1873. This is the law later savagely denounced by the vocal partisans of released and unlimited coinage of silver as the "Crime of '73." Legal tender category was restored to the colors silver dollar under the Bland-Allison Act of 1878, which prompted the coining of millions of Morgan Dollars.
SPECIFICATIONS:
Diameter: 38.1 millimeters Weight: 26.73 grams Composition: .900 silver.100 copper Edge: Reeded Net Weight: .77344 oz untainted silver
BIBLIOGRAPHY Alexander, David T. DeLorey, Thomas K. And Reed, P. Bradley, Coin World Comprehensive Catalog & Encyclopedia of United States Coins, New York, World Almanac-Pharos Books, 1990. Bowers, Q. David, Silver Dollars and Trade Dollars of the United States, Bowers & Merena Galleries, Wolfeboro, NH, 1993. Breen, Walter, Walter Breen's Complete Encyclopedia of U.S. and Colonial Coins, F.C.I. Press/Doubleday, New York, 1988. Vermeule, Cornelius, Numismatic Art in America, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1971. White, Weimar W. The Liberty Seated Dollar 1840-1873, New York, Sanford J. Durst, 1985.
Coin Information Provided Courtesy NGC.
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