Natural Toning
1859


Obverse
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Coin Details

  

Set Details
Origin/Country: United States
Design Description: SILVER DOLLARS - SEATED LIBERTY, NO MOTTO
Item Description: $1 1859
Grade: PCGS AU 55
Owner: Hagop
 
Winning Set: Natural Toning
Date Added: 4/8/2021
Research: See NGC's Census Report for this Coin

Owner's Description

A fully natural example with silver colored centers surrounded by an array of pastel colored peripheral toning. Sharply struck with uncommonly smooth surfaces that have a satin finish.

After nearly a decade of extremely limited mintages, circulation strike silver dollar production at the Philadelphia Mint swelled to 255,700 pieces in 1859. For the first time since the start of the Liberty Seated series in 1840 the nation had a rich supply of domestically mined silver in the form of Nevada's Comstock Lode. Much of the precious metal mined that year was shipped to the East and South, where bullion brokers deposited it at the Philadelphia or New Orleans mints and requested dollars for use in the export trade. Indeed, many examples of the 1859 were probably included among the more than 1,250,000 silver dollars shipped to China in 1859, 1860, and 1861.

Other 1859 dollars were held domestically by banks, merchants and bullion brokers until acquired and subsequently melted by the Mint to provide bullion for the large mintages of subsidiary silver coins at Philadelphia in 1861 and 1862. Indeed, R.W. Julian believes that the recently produced 1859 and 1860 Philadelphia Mint issues may have been disproportionately affected by this mass melting since they would have been the two issues most widely represented in bank reserves at the time. The wholesale destruction of coins through melting, either after export or at the Mint, explains why the 1859 is far rarer than the substantial mintage would suggest. Due to this discrepancy, the 1859 is one of the most underrated Liberty Seated dollars from the 1850s, especially in original and problem-free preservation.

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