The Peace Silver Dollar, 1921-1935.
A Safe and Secure Way to Invest in One of America’s Most Beautiful Coins
The end of World War I in 1918–the most destructive conflict that the world had seen up to that point in time–resulted in the call for a new United States coin to commemorate the return of peace. The Pittman Act of 1918 gave further impetus to this idea and offered the Silver Dollar as the denomination to carry the new peace-related design. Through the terms of that Congressional act, the federal government melted 270,232,722 Silver Dollars to provide bullion to help pay the cost of fighting and winning the First World War. The act also stipulated that the destroyed Silver Dollars has to be replaced, however, and this provision resulted in the Mint returning to the production of these coins in 1921. So pressing was the need to resume Silver Dollar production in that year, in fact, that the old Morgan design of 1878-1904 was briefly revived while the Mint finalized the new peace design.
The Peace Dollar is the work of Anthony de Francisci, and it is the final coin design that it included in the “Renaissance of American Coinage” that began with the redesign of our nation’s gold coins in 1907. Also widely regarded as one of the most beautiful coins struck in the United States Mint, the Peace Dollar displays a very modern “look” that is unlike that found on any previous Silver Dollar. The first examples of this type were struck in the Philadelphia Mint in December of 1921, although those coins were not placed into circulation until early 1922. The 1921 is unique among regular issue Peace Dollars in that the devices are rendered in high relief. The high relief design, despite its inherent beauty and artistic merit, proved too difficult for the Mint to strike and was replaced in 1922 by a low relief design that would remain in use through the end of the Peace Dollar series in 1935.
The silver bullion that the Mint used to strike Peace Dollars from 1921 through 1928 was provided by the aforementioned Pittman Act of 1918. A lack of bullion halted production from 1929 through 1933, but the government did authorize the Mint to strike additional Peace Dollars in 1934 and 1935 as an effort to help stimulate the economy during the worst years of the Great Depression. When the final Peace Dollars were struck in 1935, they represented the last Silver Dollars produced in the United States Mint for use in circulation.
Much like the Morgan Dollar before it, the Peace Dollar has survived in large numbers in both worn and Mint State condition. Coins of this type did circulate to a limited extent through the mid 1960s, many examples finding their way to casinos in Las Vegas during the 1950s. Many other Peace Dollars were stored in federal vaults until paid out to banks and individuals through the mid 1960s. The brevity of the Peace Dollar design–it encompasses only 24 issues–and the relatively large number of surviving examples have combined to make this one of the more widely collected U.S. coins. Many collectors choose to assemble a complete set of 24 Peace Dollars representing each date and issuing Mint in this series, the latter including the Philadelphia (no mintmark), Denver (D mintmark) and San Francisco (S mintmark) mints. This series also holds considerable appeal to investors as circulated examples of the more common Peace Dollar issues such as the 1922 and 1923 can be obtained for only a small premium over the current spot price of silver. Struck in a 90% silver, 10% copper alloy, each Peace Dollar contains more than 3/4 of an ounce of pure silver. And as classic United States coins, Peace Dollars qualify as numismatic collectibles and could be exempt from government confiscation should there be a federal recall of precious metals such as that which affected gold during the Great Depression of the 1930s.
Whether your interest is in coin collecting, precious metals investing or a little bit of both, circulated Peace Dollars offers many important opportunities and advantages for a wide variety of buyers. We invite you to explore this exciting and potentially lucrative facet of the rare coin and precious metals markets by including some of these coins in your collection or portfolio.
