We have already discussed how in the mid-1960s the price of silver moved upward and the U.S. government was losing money every time it minted a coin whose face amount was less than the value of the silver contained within it. Prior to that time, banks throughout the country had vaults stuffed full of silver dollars (informally called "cartwheels" due to their large size)--a coin which generally did not circulate except in a few areas in the West and a coin which had not even been minted, due to lack of demand, since 1935. However, once silver prices soared, people flocked to the banks to exchange their paper currency for silver dollars.
What would be the logical response of the government when it was put in the position of selling coins for $1 apiece which nobody had wanted for decades until they suddenly contained more than a dollar's worth of silver? Why, of course, simply make more silver dollars for people to hoard. In August of 1964, Congress passed a bill which was signed by President Lyndon Johnson authorizing the minting of 45 million additional silver dollars. While there was considerable opposition to this bill, Congressmen from silver-producing states in the West were able to push it through. President Johnson ordered production of the coins, and the Denver mint in 1965 started churning out silver dollars (albeit dated "1964") based on the same design (i.e. the "Peace Dollar") as the ones produced from 1921 through 1935. Eventually, the silver dollar naysayers convinced the President that the government using up enough silver to mint 45 million dollar coins would only drive up the price of the metal even faster and result in even more intensive hoarding by the public of the silver dimes, quarters, and half-dollars which were normally employed in everyday commerce. Johnson ordered the production of the dollars halted after only a total (including thirty trial pieces) of 316,106 of the cartwheels were minted.
How much is a 1964 silver dollar worth? Hard to say. Supposedly, they were all destroyed before any were released for general circulation, so the question is, in theory, an academic one (the photo below is actually of an earlier dollar with an altered date). However, in reality, the issue remains open. In 1970, the Treasury discovered two of the thirty trial pieces, which had been circulated among government officials, and destroyed them. Where are the other 28? In addition, mint employees were given an opportunity during the striking of the coins to substitute an older silver dollar in exchange for one with the 1964 date, as at the time, the Treasury just needed to come up with 45 million more silver dollars, and it would not have really mattered if a few of them were not dated 1964. After the production was halted, the workers were instructed to bring any such 1964 coins back for melting, but who knows if all of the dollars returned to the fold. Further, the 1964 coins were not individually counted or inspected prior to melting--just weighed in mass. A devious employee could have thrown an older silver dollar (which, of course, would weigh the same) into the pile and retrieved a 1964 one, and no one would have known the difference.
Well, if there is a surviving 1964 dollar, why has it not surfaced? The answer is clear. In 1933, a handful of twenty-dollar gold pieces of that same year were released into circulation after President Roosevelt had taken the country off of the gold standard and made the private ownership of gold illegal (with a few minor exceptions). The Secret Service aggressively pursued and seized, without compensation (except for one bizarre and unusual situation which may be addressed in a later Factoid), any and all 1933 twenty-dollar gold pieces, whenever they appeared, on the basis that the coins were stolen from the government. It is fairly obvious that any 1964 silver dollar which ever sees the light of day would suffer the same fate.
If a genuine* 1964 silver dollar did emerge, and if it could be legally sold, it would command millions of dollars. In fact, David Hall, president of Collectors Universe and co-founder of Professional Coin Grading Service, offered to pay $10,000 to any person holding one just for the privilege of examining it. If it were lawful to own one, a real 1964 cartwheel might be the most valuable coin in existence (except maybe for this one).
*Facsimile examples from private mints have been produced; they have minimal value.
 |
| By Wehwalt (Own work) [Public domain, CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons |
No comments:
Post a Comment