Draped Bust Dollars 1795-1804

The Draped Bust design replaced the Flowing Hair on the silver dollar in the autumn of 1795. Its designer is unknown. In the 1850s Mint Director James Ross Snowden heard from Gilbert Stuart's descendants that the painter had drawn it, and Ann Willing Bingham has been suggested as the model, but NGC notes that no document from 1795 links Stuart to the coin. What is recorded is that John Eckstein was paid for plaster models in September 1795, from which the Mint's engravers, Robert Scot among them, cut the hubs. The new director, Elias Boudinot, also restored the legal .8924 alloy on October 28, 1795, ending the Mint's use of an unauthorized .900 standard.

The Mint reported 203,033 dollars for 1795 without separating the two designs; the usual figure for the Draped Bust coins is 42,738, while Q. David Bowers estimated 110,000. Silver deposits then fell. Output dropped to 79,920 in 1796 and 7,776 in 1797, when Thomas Jefferson himself deposited Spanish dollars and the Mint closed from August to November for yellow fever. NGC cautions that these calendar-year figures do not match the dates on the coins: dies were used until they failed, and many dollars of 1796 and 1797 likely carried earlier dates.

Early in 1798 the small eagle on the reverse gave way to a heraldic eagle modeled on the Great Seal. An agreement with the Bank of the United States brought in foreign silver, and the Mint reported 327,536 dollars for 1798 and 423,515 for 1799, many of them shipped abroad, to China among other places, for their bullion. By 1801 the silver in a dollar was worth about $1.03 at market, and Boudinot steered depositors toward smaller coins. Output fell to 54,454 in 1801 and 41,650 in 1802. The last regular dollars, dated 1803, were struck in March 1804, and Secretary of State James Madison formally suspended dollar coinage in 1806.

The 1804 dollar belongs to a later era. In 1834 the State Department ordered sets of every coin in use as gifts for rulers in Asia on Edmund Roberts' trade mission. Mint officials believed the last dollars had been dated 1804 and struck the new ones with that date, in November 1834. Roberts presented sets to the Sultan of Muscat in 1835 and, the next year, to King Rama III of Siam. Collectors learned of the coin in 1842, and in 1858 Mint employees struck more 1804 dollars from a different reverse die for sale to collectors. In the 1870s the Mint also struck proof dollars dated 1801, 1802 and 1803, novodels with no original proofs behind them.

Obverse. Liberty faces right with her hair loose behind and tied with a ribbon, a drape across her bust. LIBERTY is above and the date below. The star count changes: fifteen on the 1795 and 1796 dies, sixteen in 1797, fifteen or thirteen on the Small Eagle dollars of 1798, and thirteen, seven left and six right, on the Heraldic Eagle dollars, except one 1799 obverse with eight left and five right.

Reverse, 1795-1798 (Small Eagle). A small eagle standing on a cloud inside an open wreath, with UNITED STATES OF AMERICA around it.

Reverse, 1798-1804 (Heraldic Eagle). A heraldic eagle, shield on breast, grips arrows and an olive branch, with the motto E PLURIBUS UNUM on a scroll in its beak and stars and clouds above it. No denomination appears on either face.

Edge. Lettered HUNDRED CENTS ONE DOLLAR OR UNIT, except the Class II 1804 dollar, which has a plain edge.

Mint mark. None. Every coin was struck at Philadelphia.

Die marriages. Each pairing of dies has a Bowers-Borckardt number (BB-51 and up for the Draped Bust dollars) and an older Bolender number.

• 1795 Off-Center and Centered bust: two die marriages. On BB-51 the portrait sits to the left; on BB-52 it is centered, as on later dates. The BB-51 reverse was used again in 1796, 1797 and 1798.
• 1796: Small Date, Small Letters, Small Date, Large Letters and Large Date, Small Letters, from four 15-star obverses in six marriages.
• 1797: 16 stars arranged ten left and six right, or nine and seven with Large Letters or Small Letters on the reverse. The Mint reported 7,776 dollars for the year.
• 1798 Small Eagle: a 15-star and a 13-star obverse; Bowers estimated about 35,000 Small Eagle dollars dated 1798.
• 1798 Heraldic Eagle: the Large Eagle dollars come in 31 marriages, divided by the shape of the 9 into Knob 9 and Pointed 9 groups, with shield and arrow varieties such as Knob 9, 4 Lines, Pointed 9, 5 Vertical Lines, 10 Arrows and the Wide Date.
• 1799/8: one overdated obverse used with three reverses, BB-141 to BB-143, including one reverse cut with 15 stars instead of 13, the extra stars partly hidden by enlarged clouds. The 13-star reverse is the other overdate style; the 8x5 Stars obverse is the only one with eight stars on the left.
• 1800 AMERICAI: a small die break after AMERICA that looks like a letter I, on one reverse paired with two obverses. Other 1800 varieties include the Dotted Date and Wide Date, Low 8.
• 1802/1: five overdate marriages, each with its own obverse.
• 1803 Small 3 and Large 3: NGC suggests Plain 3 and Serif 3 would describe them better, since the sizes are close.
• Proof novodels dated 1801, 1802 and 1803: struck in the 1870s from a new obverse die. No record of their numbers was kept.
• 1804 dollars: the Class I originals of 1834-1835, the unique plain-edge Class II and the Class III restrikes with edges lettered after striking. The King of Siam set surfaced in 1962, and a seventh Class III, from the James A. Stack Sr. collection, was found in 2025.

• Weight: 26.96 grams (416 grains)
• Composition: .8924 silver (about 89 percent), the rest copper, from October 28, 1795; NGC lists .892
• Silver content: 0.7731 troy ounce
• Diameter: about 39-40 mm
• Edge: lettered HUNDRED CENTS ONE DOLLAR OR UNIT (plain on the Class II 1804)
• Designer: Robert Scot, from a design traditionally credited to Gilbert Stuart