1897 So-Called Dollar HK-1008, Bickford Dollar

Coin Details

Description

"This Gold & Silver Coin Will be Good the World Over," runs the border of the reverse, and HK-1008 is the piece that makes the words literal: silver with gold center, where its sister strikings use aluminum with brass or bronze. It belongs to Dana Bickford's 1897 Grant's Tomb design, with Grant's bust set into the tomb on the obverse and "The International / Bi-Metal / Dollar" across the reverse center, ringed by seven ovals listing what the dollar fetched in France, Austria, Japan, Russia, Germany and England. Between the links and the center runs "Invented and Protected by Dana Bickford." All eight of his 1897 patterns are 28 mm. The idea went back to the 1870s, when Mint Director Henry R. Linderman approved Bickford's proposal and struck a pattern eagle, though Congress never took it up.

Cross References

HK-1008; PCGS #643769