The United States Mint had ceased beautiful silver dollars in 1804. Although the denomination was the "flagship" fiscal part in U.S. money, exigency for it came generally from bullion depositors, and few buck coins circulated in the beginning of the 19th century. Much of each year's mintage was each melted domestically or exported.
By the 1820s and '30s however, two successive Mint directors, Samuel Moore and Robert M. Patterson, had advocated bracing cash currency. Although Moore obtained authorization to do so in 1831, it wasn't pending Patterson replaced him in 1835 the preparations finally got under way. Not since the 1792 half dismes were struck had so many Mint and other government officials extensive such an intense notice in the production of a new coin.
Mint Director Patterson, ambitious to make an artistic account, hired actor Thomas Sully to make sketching of a full notable of Liberty-along the outline of the allegorical stature Britannia seen on English coins. Patterson retained imminent artist Titian Peale to make the eagle for the riddle and instructed newly hired Second Engraver Christian Gobrecht to transmute the designs to metal. Gobrecht's blueprint was a composite of both Peale's and Sully's mechanism, as well as his own ideas. It was a masterful work and usual close acclaim. President Jackson and his Cabinet reviewed Gobrecht's sketches on October 17, 1835 and were well impressed.
The final blueprinted featured the reckon of Liberty seated on a sway, draped in a diverse-descent gown-suggesting statuary from Hellenistic Greece. She is looking over her right shoulder, her right arm supporting the Union protect. Her left arm holds a long baton with a Liberty cap on top. The undamaged middle badge stands abandoned on the frontage with no stars or lettered campaign, only the meeting below, giving the coin a medallic eminence, with Liberty a secluded, cameo body. A naturalistic eagle in departure adorns the transpose, the bird rising "onward and upward" as Patterson planned, a thinking planned to embody the abundant optimism the Americans had for the people's impending. The eagle flies amid a grassland of 26 large and small stars, representing the thirteen novel states and the thirteen admitted to the Union since 1789 (expecting Michigan's entry).
By November, 1836 all was arranged for check strikings in silver. A small number (presumably 18 pieces) of the new dollars were distributed in Philadelphia. Reaction was almost universally positive, with one exception. Patterson had planned Gobrecht to place his name on the new coin. He did so by inscribing C. GOBRECHT F. In small print in the pasture beneath the personage of Liberty-the 'F.' fixed for FECIT, Latin for "He made it." Gobrecht was criticized as a "conceited German" and vilified in the home plead. Patterson solved the problem by having Gobrecht move his name to the pedestal of the figure of Liberty, obvious only if one looks warily at the coin. The eighteen or so pieces struck with his name below the immoral are considered patterns and are very erratic.
Regular production of Gobrecht dollars began sometime in December of 1836. The 1,000 accepted stock dollars of 1836 were struck at the old 1792 standard delicacy of .8924. The same time was used for the 600 coins minted in March, 1837, but these pieces were created from planchets .900 subtle-as authorized by the Mint Act of 1837. So close in import, the two issues are clearly differentiated by alignment: the 1837 dollars have a medallic alignment-the face and overturn are aligned on a vertical axis, while the 1836 coins have a horizontal, or coin, alignment. All inventive dollars square 1836 will show the eagle snatched "onward and upward," while the restrikes made in the 1850s and '60s will have the eagle airborne horizontally. The about 25 coins made in 1838 are considered to be patterns, with thirteen stars around the margin of the facade replacing the stars on the converse fields. Only 300 dollars were struck in 1839 with Gobrecht's shape, and all were proposed for circulation. These coins, like the 1838 patterns, have reeded edges.
Throughout the 19th century Gobrecht dollars were very accepted with collectors. In the deceased 1850s, require far exceeded the offered supply. Mint Director James Ross Snowden, desirous of expanding the Mint's collection of coins during his term, decisive to take benefit of this setting. Funds were not unfilled for outright grasp of coins, so Snowden used Mint dies to generate numismatic curiosities such as the Class II and Class III 1804 dollars, "transitional" half dimes and dimes, and Gobrecht dough restrikes. He would then trade these restrikes and fantasy coins to confine collectors for unusual coins wanting in the Mint collection. These restrikes were made from 1858 through the summer of 1860 and again in 1867-68. Actual numbers made are strange, but it is estimated that the totality number of restrikes may exceed the first mintage.
All Gobrecht dollars were struck in the Philadel-phia Mint and have a resistant face, even the accepted circulation issues of 1836 and 1837. This is a single phenomenon in U.S. numismatics-the only series of coins intended for circulation struck as proofs. Counterfeits are near unknown, perhaps because of the proof surface, which is very hard to duplicate. The propose first begins to show friction on Liberty's knees and breasts and on the highpoint of the eagle's breast on the undo.
Traditionally given the class of usual gush coins, Gobrecht dollars are actively pursued by class collectors. The most normally encountered emerge is the ugly skirt 1836-dated restrike with name on establish and twinkling reorder. These restrikes compose more than two thirds of the Gobrecht dollars offered at sale in topical years, and they exist in an eclectic stretch of grades from heavily circulated to gem rider. Date collectors occasionally crack completion of a three-instance set of coins with the dates 1836, 1838 and 1839, but very few collectors undertake the challenge of a complete set of Gobrechts. Such a set would be virtually impossible to assemble because of the several face/setback mulings made by Mint Director Snowden in the deceased 1850s.
Beginning in 1837 Gobrecht's Seated Liberty pattern was adopted on all U.S. silver coins from the dime through buck. The hitch with its naturalistic eagle was dropped for the part, half dough and dough denominations in favor of a revision of John Reich's heraldic eagle of 1807. The facade intention, only faintly modified from Gobrecht's unusual concept, was used on the buck awaiting 1873.
SPECIFICATIONS:
Diameter: 39 millimeters Weight: 1836 Original: 26.96 grams Others: 26.73 grams Composition: 1836 Originial: .8924 silver.1076 copper Others: .900 silver.100 copper Edge: 1836 Plain; 1838-39 Reeded Net Weight: 1836 Original: .77351 scrap untainted silver Others: .77344 ounce untainted silver
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Bowers, Q. David, Silver Dollars and Trade Dollars of the United States, Bowers and Merena Galleries, Wolfeboro, NH, 1993. Bowers, Q. David, The History of United States Coinage As Illustrated by the Garrett Collection, Bowers and Merena Galleries, Wolfeboro, NH, 1979. Breen, Walter, Walter Breen's Complete Encylopedia of U.S. and Colonial Coins, F.C.I./Doubleday, New York, 1988. Julian, Robert. W. "The Gobrecht Dollars of 1836-1838," Legacy Magazine, November-December, 1988. Pollock, Andrew W. United States Patterns and Related Issues, Bowers and Merena Galleries, Wolfeboro, NH, 1994.
Coin Information Provided Courtesy NGC.
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