Today's Coin of the Day is probably my favorite US coin. The one in the pictures is an 1876-S (the mint mark is on the back below the eagle) The Trade Dollar is something of a world traveller because its sole purpose was foreign trade. In fact, most trade dollars ended up in China.
The first thing you will notice when looking at the pictures of this coin are the eastern characters punched into its surface. No, these were not part of the original design! They were added by assayers. Even though each coin states its .900 silver content very conspicuously, no one was willing to take that as fact. Instead, each time the coins changed hands, an assayer would determine the silver content and then stamp his approval DIRECTLY INTO THE COIN. The more a coin was traded, the more marks it would accumulate. As you can see, this coin has been around!
These marks are called "chop
marks" in the lingo of coin collectors. Because each assayer used a unique mark, it is possible to trace the locations a Trade Dollar visited. If anyone knows a good resource for decoding chop marks, I would love to see it! There is some controversy in the collecting community about chop marks. Most 3rd party grading services do not consider chop marks when grading, since they are part of the history of the coin. Some collectors are like me, and like the character and interest chop marks add. Others regard them as "damage" and avoid them whenever possible. Only you can decide who is right...
The trade dollar itself was only produced for 11 years, from 1873 to 1883, as it turned out to be rather unpopular with foreign countries. It was only 90% silver, but circulating next to it was the Spanish Milled Dollar, which I believe had a higher silver content. Many Spanish Milled Dollars also have chop marks. This coin is also not terribly popular with modern collectors, perhaps due to most of them not knowing it exists. You can get one at a pretty low price compared to less rare but more sought after coins.
So there you have it, a short lived experiment in foreign trade currency from the tail end of the 1800's! Look forward to the next post for a coin with a defunct denomination.
The first thing you will notice when looking at the pictures of this coin are the eastern characters punched into its surface. No, these were not part of the original design! They were added by assayers. Even though each coin states its .900 silver content very conspicuously, no one was willing to take that as fact. Instead, each time the coins changed hands, an assayer would determine the silver content and then stamp his approval DIRECTLY INTO THE COIN. The more a coin was traded, the more marks it would accumulate. As you can see, this coin has been around!
These marks are called "chop
marks" in the lingo of coin collectors. Because each assayer used a unique mark, it is possible to trace the locations a Trade Dollar visited. If anyone knows a good resource for decoding chop marks, I would love to see it! There is some controversy in the collecting community about chop marks. Most 3rd party grading services do not consider chop marks when grading, since they are part of the history of the coin. Some collectors are like me, and like the character and interest chop marks add. Others regard them as "damage" and avoid them whenever possible. Only you can decide who is right...The trade dollar itself was only produced for 11 years, from 1873 to 1883, as it turned out to be rather unpopular with foreign countries. It was only 90% silver, but circulating next to it was the Spanish Milled Dollar, which I believe had a higher silver content. Many Spanish Milled Dollars also have chop marks. This coin is also not terribly popular with modern collectors, perhaps due to most of them not knowing it exists. You can get one at a pretty low price compared to less rare but more sought after coins.
So there you have it, a short lived experiment in foreign trade currency from the tail end of the 1800's! Look forward to the next post for a coin with a defunct denomination.
1 comment:
Wow .. i have 19 of them in a coin set that was passed down my family for a while.. never knew much bout it... this first time i ever seen it on a site. tysm for info.
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