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***Auction Highlight*** 1856-p Seated Liberty Dollar $1 Graded ms62 by SEGS (fc)

Currency:USD Category:Coins & Paper Money Start Price:4,500.00 USD Estimated At:6,937.50 - 13,875.00 USD
***Auction Highlight*** 1856-p Seated Liberty Dollar $1 Graded ms62 by SEGS (fc)
***Auction Highlight*** 1856-p Seated Liberty Dollar $1 Graded ms62 by SEGS. Still another "trade dollar": Most 1856 Liberty Seated dollars were exported, many via the clipper ship trade to selected Chinese ports, where they were melted. During the era, millions of dollars' worth of tea and silk were imported from China into the United States. Other dollars were sent to Europe (see following). Still others may have gone to South America.By 1856 the San Francisco Mint had been in operation for over two years, but despite requests to do so, it had not yet struck any silver dollars. The Philadelphia Mint had sent no dies of this denomination, nor would it until 1859.Silver to China and India: The Bankers' Magazine and Statistical Register reported the following: (October 1856, p. 303.) "WHERE DID THE GOLD AND SILVER GO? It is well known that the silver coin held by the banks in the United States, eight or 10 years ago, has almost entirely disappeared to this day. The remnants are composed of small coin, reserved for change. Gradually, from the years 1848 to 1855, all of the available silver coin of this country was exported to Europe; but there it did not remain. The exhaustion of silver noted in the banking and commercial history of the United States, for the past eight years, has also taken place in Europe ...."The government of the United States has adopted measures, rather late, it is true, but for the present effectual, for the prevention of further large exports of silver, by offering a liberal premium for silver coin, thus converting it into new coinage, with such alloy that its legal tender value at present is fully 10% over its market value as a commodity. [The reference here is to the Act of February 1853.] When we inquire further as to the causes and means of exhaustion of silver in Europe, we find that the preference felt for the metal in China and India demands a continued export of all that can be realized .... "The same publication, issue of September 1856, pp. 200-201, noted that in England much silver had been exported directly to China and the East Indies amounting to £1,716,100 in 1851, £2,630,238 in 1852, £4,710,665 in 1853, £3,132,003 in 1854, and £6,409,889 in 1855. "The main cause we opine lies in the enormous increase of Chinese exports of silk and tea to England and North America." Presumably, large amounts of American silver coins were sent from the United States to China during the same time for essentially the same purposes.A. Barton Hepburn's History of Currency in the United States, 1915, included a column for exports of domestic U.S. coins in millions of dollars per year. The figures are enlightening: 1850 $2.0, 1851 $18.1, 1852 $37.4, 1853 $23.5, 1854 $38.1, 1855 $54.0, 1856 $44.1, 1857 $60.1, 1858 $42.4, 1859 $57.5, and 1860 $56.9. Most of these coins had to be gold, as silver coinage did not rise above $9.1 million in any year except 1853, and averaged something under $5 million per year. The net result was, for all the out-pouring of coin in the 1850s, the total amount of specie in the country barely increased after 1853, and actually declined from 1857 to 1860. (Harry E. Salyards, M.D., called my attention to the Hepburn citation and furnished comments concerning it.)