Standard Silver Patterns (1870)

In 1869 specie payments were still suspended, gold and silver traded at a premium over paper money, and change under a dollar was made in paper notes. James Pollock, back as Director of the Mint from May 1869, used his report for that year to argue for a way out. If the dime, quarter and half dollar held less silver than their face value, people would have no reason to hoard them, and with a legal limit on how many could be issued they could replace the fractional notes. The Mint struck patterns for the plan in 1869 with the words STANDARD SILVER on the reverse. Those first pieces, and the earlier patterns of the 1860s, are in Reconstruction Era Patterns (1866-1869), with the 1869 dimes, quarters and half dollars.

James B. Longacre, who had held the Chief Engraver's post since 1844, died on the first day of 1869. William Barber became Chief Engraver on January 20 and held the post until his death in August 1879, and Wikipedia credits him with many pattern designs for a "Standard" coinage. In 1870 the Mint kept the three Standard Silver heads of 1869, one in a cap with stars, one in a tiara without stars and one with a single star on the band. It struck them with the 1869 reverse and with a new reverse, and Barber designed a new seated Liberty facing left for every silver denomination from the three-cent piece to the dollar. Dollars were also made with a seated Liberty dressed as an Indian princess. USPatterns.com credits that design to Longacre and believes Barber finished it. Bowers notes that the lighter coinage was not meant to include a dollar, and that the Mint made dollar patterns in 1870 all the same.

The Mint also made pieces for collectors. USPatterns.com reports that the Standard Silver sets were sold for $15 again in 1870, and that the regular dies of each denomination, cent through double eagle, were struck in copper, aluminum and nickel so that full off-metal sets could be sold. Bowers counts more than 250 different patterns dated 1870 and adds that only some were sold openly. Lighter silver patterns appeared once more in 1871. After that, in Bowers's account, Pollock dropped the plan.

Judd numbers. Judd's reference, United States Pattern Coins, gives every piece here its number. A Judd number covers a single die pair, struck in a single metal with a single kind of edge. Most 1870 designs exist in silver, copper and aluminum, each with both a reeded and a plain edge, so a die pair usually takes six numbers in a row. J-825 to J-830, for example, are Barber's seated dime with the STANDARD wreath reverse. The regular-dies pieces take three numbers, one each for copper, aluminum and nickel. A letter after a number marks a later addition, such as the brass three-cent J-804a or the nickel quarter J-893a.

Other catalogs. USPatterns.com also gives the Pollock number, the Adams-Woodin number and, for most Standard Silver pieces, Taxay's EP number. The catalogs do not always divide the coins the same way. Pollock splits J-939 to J-944 into two series because two obverse dies were used. Adams-Woodin gives two numbers to some copper dollars struck on thick and thin planchets.

The Standard Silver heads. The dime and quarter heads are a cap with three stars, a tiara inscribed LIBERTY without stars, and a band with one star. The half dollar cap has two stars, and the half dollar dies differ in detail. On some LIBERTY is incuse on the ribbon, on others it is raised. The 1869 die, which hides Barber's initial B in the ribbon behind the cap, was used again for J-975 to J-980. Each head was struck with both reverses. The 1869 reverse has STANDARD SILVER around the top and the date below the wreath. On the new reverse the denomination and the date are inside an open wreath of cotton and corn, with STANDARD in small letters above.

Barber's seated Liberty. Barber's new obverse shows Liberty seated and facing left, with a shield, an olive branch and a pole and cap standing free behind her. On the three-cent piece, half dime and dime the legend UNITED STATES OF AMERICA surrounds her, and from the quarter up she is ringed by 13 stars. It was paired with a wreath reverse marked STANDARD and with the regular reverse of each denomination. The three-cent piece used only the regular reverse.

Metals and edges. Silver, copper and aluminum make up most of the series. The regular-dies sets add nickel, and a few odd pieces are in other metals. J-793 is struck on a planchet streaked with silver and copper, said to be native Michigan ore. J-804a tested as brass, J-808 is magnetic steel or pure nickel, and J-807 is struck on thin nickel planchets that may be three-cent stock. "Nickel" in these listings means the regular copper-nickel coinage alloy.

Proofs, business strikes and gilt pieces. Almost all of these pieces are proofs. J-1022, the nickel dollar from regular dies, is one of the few known in both formats. USPatterns.com describes a proof obverse die with a high date and a business-strike die with a lower one, and it knows three business strikes and at least one proof. Gilt copper examples of the half eagle, eagle and double eagle carry their own NGC and PCGS labels, but they are the same Judd numbers.

Standard Silver

• Dimes: the three heads with the new reverse are J-837 to J-854, starting with J-837, the cap with three stars. With the 1869 reverse they are J-855 to J-872. USPatterns.com knows one J-837 struck by mistake on a nickel three-cent or cent planchet.
• Quarters: J-888 to J-905 with the new reverse and J-906 to J-923 with the 1869 reverse. Silver examples are known on planchets of two weights, about 77 and about 84 grains. There are two odd metals. J-888a is struck on silver and copper. J-893a is nickel, a piece PCGS found and Coin World first showed in 1993.
• Half dollars: the cap obverse comes from several dies, with LIBERTY incuse on J-939 to J-944 and raised on J-945 to J-950. The tiara and star heads are J-951 to J-962, and all of those have the new reverse. With the 1869 reverse the series runs from J-963 to J-992, including the 1869 die with Barber's B on J-975 to J-980.

William Barber's seated Liberty

• Three-cent pieces: J-796 to J-801 use the regular silver three-cent reverse. USPatterns.com finds many of them on half dime planchets.
• Half dimes, dimes, quarters and half dollars: one run each with the STANDARD wreath reverse (J-809, J-825, J-876, J-927) and one with the regular reverse (J-815, J-831, J-882, J-933).
• Dollars: J-996 to J-1001 have the STANDARD 1 DOLLAR wreath reverse and J-1002 to J-1007 the regular reverse with the perched eagle.

Longacre's seated Indian princess

• Dollars J-1008 to J-1013 have the STANDARD 1 DOLLAR reverse and J-1014 to J-1019 the regular reverse. The obverse shows Liberty with a pole and cap and a globe inscribed LIBERTY, flags behind her and LONGACRE below the base.

Regular dies in other metals

• Cents J-787 to J-789, two-cent pieces J-790 to J-793, three-cent pieces J-794, J-795 and J-802 to J-804a, five-cent pieces J-805 to J-808 (including the steel J-808), half dimes J-821 to J-824, dimes J-873 to J-875, quarters J-924 to J-926, half dollars J-993 to J-995a and dollars J-1020 to J-1022.
• Gold denominations J-1023 to J-1040, in copper, aluminum and nickel: the gold dollar, the quarter eagle, the three-dollar piece, the half eagle, the eagle and the double eagle. Most of the nickel gold-denomination pieces are single coins that trace back to Woodin's 1914 exhibit.

Oddities

• J-793a is a fantasy that pairs the 1870 two-cent reverse with a Standard Silver quarter reverse, on a silver and copper planchet. It is filed with the two-cent pieces because that planchet stock was used almost only for them. One is known.
• A lead splasher of a reverse leading to the new half dollar design, J-A1870-1, is filed with the die trials.

The Mint made and sold most of these pieces for collectors. USPatterns.com reports that the Standard Silver sets sold for $15, that Barber's seated designs were issued in complete sets, and that the off-metal pieces from regular dies went into sets of every denomination. Bowers adds that some 1870 patterns were sold openly and others were not.

Some examples are in public collections: J-793 and J-1002 in the Smithsonian, J-799 and other pieces in the Connecticut State Library, several dollars in the Durham Museum (ex Byron Reed) and a J-996 in the American Numismatic Society. Many pedigrees run back to the 1914 American Numismatic Society exhibition, where pieces owned by William Woodin and by Brenner were shown.

Metal is the main thing to check. Thin nickel pieces such as J-807 may be mint errors, the J-893a nickel quarter may be a plated or double-struck piece, and USPatterns.com recommends testing the copper-nickel J-995a. Gilt copper half eagles, eagles and double eagles are copper pieces with a gold surface, not gold patterns.