Trade Dollars 1873-1885

By the late 1860s the United States had a problem with its silver dollar in Asia. Chinese merchants trusted the Mexican peso, and the American dollar was lighter, so traders bound for China bought Mexican coins instead. Deputy Comptroller John Jay Knox, after talks with the former San Francisco assayer Louis A. Garnett and with Henry Linderman, pushed for a heavier coin made just for export. The idea ended up in the Coinage Act of 1873, which President Ulysses S. Grant signed on February 12, 1873. A late rider made the new coin legal tender for debts up to five dollars.

Linderman, soon Director of the Mint, chose designs by Chief Engraver William Barber. The first trade dollars were struck at Philadelphia on July 11, 1873, and Carson City began within days of receiving its dies on July 22. San Francisco, the port for Asia, struck more than either of the others that year. Most of the early coins went to China and were melted there or weighed as bullion.

Then the price of silver fell. By 1875 the silver in a trade dollar was worth less than a dollar, and anyone who brought bullion to the Mint could have it struck into trade dollars and spend them at home for face value. Coins came back from Asia too. Congress answered on July 22, 1876, by ending the trade dollar's legal tender status, but that only left the people who were paid in trade dollars, often factory workers, with coins that banks and shops could refuse. Treasury Secretary John Sherman tried to stop new orders in 1877 and finally ended them on February 22, 1878.

Business strikes stopped that spring. Philadelphia kept striking proofs for collectors through 1883. In 1887 Congress let holders redeem unmutilated trade dollars for six months, and the Mint melted them into smaller silver coins. Coins with chop marks or holes were turned away. Far from Washington, trade dollars kept passing as silver in Asian ports, and many came back to the United States in the 1950s, worn and stamped.

The 1884 and 1885 proofs were never part of the public record. NGC traces 264 proofs dated 1884 delivered in January 1884, just before orders arrived to stop. Ten ended up with the Philadelphia collector William Idler, together with five dated 1885 from a different reverse die. Their existence became public only in 1908.

Obverse. Liberty sits facing left, toward Asia, on bales of goods with a sheaf of wheat behind her. Her outstretched right hand holds an olive branch, and her left holds a scroll inscribed LIBERTY. Thirteen stars run around the border, the date is at the bottom, and a banner on the obverse carries IN GOD WE TRUST.

Reverse. An eagle with spread wings holds three arrows and an olive branch, under a ribbon reading E PLURIBUS UNUM. Below it is the line 420 GRAINS, 900 FINE, and around the edge UNITED STATES OF AMERICA and TRADE DOLLAR. Senator John Sherman insisted on the weight and fineness line.

Mint mark. Under the eagle and the weight line, just above the E D of TRADE DOLLAR (search). It reads CC for Carson City or S for San Francisco. Philadelphia coins have none. Several sizes of letter were used, and NGC notes an 1878-CC die with the mint mark centered over DO.

Type 1 and Type 2. Barber lowered the relief of the design in 1875 to fix weak strikes, and new hubs followed.

Every coin of 1873 and 1874 is Type 1 on both sides, and every coin from 1877 on is Type 2 on both. The years in between mix them: 1875 coins have the Type 1 obverse with either reverse, and 1876 coins come as Type 1 over Type 1, Type 1 over Type 2, or Type 2 over Type 2.

Things that cause confusion.

• Chop marks. Small punched characters, sometimes several on one coin, are the marks of Chinese merchants who vouched for the silver. They are not a modern defacement.
• Counterstamps. A name or word stamped into the field by an American business is a merchant counterstamp, identified by its Brunk number. Several are listed with their host coins, such as the 1874 J.L. Cooper and the 1878-S F.H. Hill.
• Not a Morgan or Seated dollar. The trade dollar is a separate coin with its own weight. The word TRADE above DOLLAR and the weight line under the eagle settle it.

• 1878-CC: Carson City struck 97,000 before the order of February 22, 1878. NGC records that 44,148 of them were never released and were destroyed on July 19, 1878, leaving 52,852.
• 1873-CC: 124,500 struck in the first months of Carson City's trade dollar coinage. NGC finds that nearly all were shipped overseas.
• 1876-CC: 509,000, all struck by April 1876. NGC describes a doubled die reverse, seen best in the olive branch, on a Type 1 reverse die.
• 1875-S over CC (FS-501): an S punched over a CC on a reverse die sent to San Francisco. A second die, FS-502, shows the CC more faintly.
• 1875: Philadelphia struck 218,200 business strikes.
• 1877-S: 9,519,000 struck. Known varieties are a repunched date, FS-301, and the doubled die reverses FS-801 and FS-802. The 1877 Philadelphia coin has a doubled die obverse (FS-101).
• 1874-S, 1875-S, 1876-S and 1877-S: each has a tiny Micro S mint mark on some dies, alongside larger letters.
• Proofs: Philadelphia struck proofs every year. The published figures run from 510 in 1877 (Q. David Bowers preferred 710) to 1,987 in 1880. From 1879 through 1883 proofs were the only trade dollars made.
• 1884 and 1885 proofs: ten and five known, never sold by the Mint (see History).

The 1874 No Period lacks the period after FINE in the weight line. Heritage explains that the period was cut into the working dies by hand and was sometimes left off (search).

• Composition: 90% silver, 10% copper
• Weight: 420 grains (27.22 grams)
• Silver content: 0.7876 troy ounces (NGC)
• Diameter: 38.1 mm
• Edge: reeded
• Designer: William Barber (both sides)

The 420-grain weight made the trade dollar 7.5 grains heavier than the 412.5-grain standard silver dollar, and one source puts its pure silver at 378 grains, a grain more than the Mexican dollar it was built to compete with (World Banknotes & Coins).