Silver Dollar Use Jumps on Army Bases

[Morsecode]

Just borrowed a book titled "Bristol Goes to War", a phot compilation of Bristol Press headlines 1940 - 45. I have only started to flip through it and found this.

[cwgii]

250 mil, stockpiles dollars. Wow

[hirbonzig]

Would have been interesting if there was a mint built in Anderson Indiana. New mint mark “A”.

[Lemon Thrower]

that article is a little old, lol. Steak 31 cents a pound. That was so long ago, my keyboard no longer has the "cents" symbol.

[shinnosuke]

And salmon for 27 cents/lb! We pay $8-9/lb now. That's some serious dollar debasement.

I wonder how many of those 250 million silver dollars avoided the melting pot.

[Morsecode]

I wonder how many of those 250 million silver dollars avoided the melting pot.

Well, due to the Silver Act of 1942, Treasury records indicate that 53 million ended up in the melting pot just two years after this article was written.

Then in the run-up to the silver coinage halt, in March 1964, "more than 100 million dollars were purchased by the public at face value from government stockpiles", according to several accounts. Further "liquidating" is thought to have occurred in the mid-60s, but that liquidating is believed to be in the form of misc. $1000 bag sales rather than melting, if it happened at all.

Finally, the GSA auction sales (1972 - 1980) of mostly Carson City dollars numbered around 3 million.

So...of the 250 million coins mentioned:

53 million melted (1942-43)
100+ million redeemed (1960-64)
?? sold (1965-67)
3 million sold (1972-1980)

Maybe there's still some gathering dust in fed vaults?

[shinnosuke]

Good info. Makes me think prices don't properly reflect the rarity.

[68Camaro]

250 million on top of 55 million circulating. 305 million plus any that had been hoarded