Owner Comments:
Attractive deep lavender toning with burnt orange and green surrounding the devices, stars, and date. Satiny in finish and lustrous with sharp striking detail and a few light marks. Purchased from the Jim Gray collection.
The circulation strike 1869 silver dollar is a curious issue the backstory for which has been debated by numismatic scholars. What is certain is that a mintage of 423,700 pieces represents a significant increase over the Mint's yearly silver dollar output from 1861 through 1868. Opinions differ, however, as to the why of this sudden increase. Two opposing views are presented by Q. David Bowers in his 1993 Silver Dollars and Trade Dollars of the United States: A Complete Encyclopedia:"[John M.] Willem states that the Mexican peso fell out of favor with Chinese merchants (due to a new tax in Mexico), and that the large business strike coinage of Liberty Seated dollars from 1869 onward was accomplished to provide coins for export to take advantage of the situation. However, opinions differ on this (see immediately below)."The following is by R.W. Julian:"'The heavy coinage of silver dollars in the late 1860s can be shown to be the result of another imbalance in trade for silver. Prior to about 1868 the U.S. usually exported more silver than it produced and imported and there was little need for a dollar coinage. After that time, however, there was no other place for the excess silver to go and it was therefore coined into dollars, even though they did not circulate. It was a practical way to store silver with a readily known and guaranteed value. That some of these dollars did go to the Orient I again have no doubt, but I think that there was less than 25,000 annually and perhaps considerably less considering the ready availability of silver ingots in any purity desired.'”
Given that the 1869 is scarce to rare in all grades, we are inclined to agree with Willem's suggestion that large numbers of these coins were shipped to the Orient. Other scholars agree, such as Hepburn in History of Currency in the United States, who states that the increase in silver dollar coinage from 1868 to 1872 was "chiefly due to the rich discoveries of Nevada" and, more to the point, that " practically all were exported."
These coins were struck at the request of bullion depositors, and virtually all were used in the export trade. From 1869 through the series' end in 1873, the Liberty Seated dollar was better able to compete with the Mexican dollar in the China trade due to a tax in the former country that was first levied in 1869. Domestic production continued to increase, further explaining the sharp increase in Liberty Seated dollar coinage from 1868 to 1869.
While many examples of the 1870, 1871 and 1872 Philadelphia Mint silver dollar issues remained in the United States, this was almost certainly not the case with the 1869. Virtually all examples must have been exported (as above) and subsequently melted since this issue is highly elusive today and far rarer than the relatively sizeable mintage would imply.