5468

1879 $4 Coiled Hair, Judd-1638, Pollock-1838, R.6, PR6

Currency:USD Category:Coins & Paper Money / US Coins Start Price:42,500.00 USD Estimated At:1.00 - 1,000,000.00 USD
1879 $4 Coiled Hair, Judd-1638, Pollock-1838, R.6, PR6
<B>1879<$4> Coiled Hair, Judd-1638, Pollock-1838, R.6, PR63 NGC.</B></I> Richmond Collection. The background of the stella is rooted in the attempt of 19th century America to solve the silver/gold relationship as well as create an international coinage. While some of Walter Breen's research has been repudiated in the years since his death, his grasp of the two issues that drove the mint to create the stella bears repeating: "This silver/gold 'rivalry' was to become subject matter for thousands of learned papers and books exhibiting mostly their authors' ignorance, reams of futile congressional debates, and eventually the main issue of the 1896 and 1900 presidential campaigns, inspiring William Jennings Bryan's obfuscatory 'Cross of Gold' speech. Underlying all the rhetoric were official policies only partly concealing the real issue, which was subsidies to wealthy mine owners while people starved in the streets."<BR> After Prussia went on the gold standard and dumped 8,000 tons of silver on the international metals market, the situation worsened for mine owners and silver proponents. New outlets were needed. The internationally accepted Trade dollar promoted Comstock silver abroad with an extra grain of silver in each coin to help guarantee acceptance of these coins (mostly in China). Also, the Bland-Allison Act was passed in 1878 and led to the creation of the Morgan dollar and the government requirement to purchase between two and four million ounces of silver per month of 'new' silver. Additionally, an international coinage was proposed in 1879 by Rep. John Kasson for a metric gold coinage that would contain both gold and 10% silver. These are the coins that we know today as stellas.<BR> As Mark Borckardt pointed out in the write-up for the PR67 1879 Flowing Hair stella, it is doubtful that such planchets were actually produced. It would have been more expedient for t