The First U.S. Silver Dollar: The Flowing Hair Dollar
Beginning in the 1780s, a group of prominent U.S. citizens, many tied to the Declaration of Independence and the Revolutionary War, called for the establishment of national coinage. Coins utilized for trade at the time had been minted by individual states and included a common global coin, the Spanish peso or pieces-of-eight. The U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1789, gave Congress the power “to coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures”. Enter Alexander Hamilton who presented in 1781 a report to Congress recommending that a dollar be produced with the silver content matching that of the average silver content from pesos tested, or 371.25 grains of silver and have a gross weight of 416 grains, copper accounting for the remainder of the dollar’s metal composition. On March 3, 1791, Congress passed a joint resolution authorizing the creation of a federal mint.
In the 1791 State of the Union address (not called this at the time but this was what it was) by George Washington, he urged Congress to move forward with establishing the mint to address the scarcity of small change in the economy. The Senate appointed Robert Morris to draft the legislation and after much back and forth between the Senate and the House, the Coinage Act of 1792 was signed on April 2, 1792, by President Washington. The Coinage Act also authorized the production of lesser denominated coins. The dollar was initially proposed to depict George Washington himself as presented by the Senate, but the House has this removed and replaced with the figure of Liberty.
By September 1793, machinery and personnel had begun to occupy the new mint in Philadelphia and by 1793 the first cents were produced. As the precise design for the first U.S. silver dollar has general guidelines laid out by Congress but not an exact design, early in 1794 the engraver Robert Scot began preparing designs for the silver dollar. While the statute has called for the coin to contain 89.2% silver, based on the assay of Spanish coins that was later to be found to be done in error, this composition of silver was very difficult to produce and would quickly darken if put into circulation. As a result, The Mint decided to mint the Flowing Hair Coin in 90% silver, which effectively hurt depositors of silver at the Treasury as it was more silver than initially stated. Congress later approved the petition for reimbursement to these depositors in 1800.
The first silver dollars were struck on October 15, 1794. On October 16, 1794, after receiving a silver dollar from the Mint Director, Secretary of State Edmund Randolph sent the Flowing Hair dollar coin to President Washington for his inspection. Between 1794 and 1795, the Flowing Hair dollar was produced in three batches, the first in 1794 of 1,758, the second in early 1795 after new machinery had been purchased and utilized by the mint of 3,810, and the final batch in 1795 which is estimated at 160,295. The Draped Bust dollar replaced the Flowing Hair dollar after this last production batch.
The Flowing Hair dollar is considered one of the most rare and valuable of all U.S. coins, with only an estimated 120–130 thought to still be in existence as of the 1990’s per numismatic historian Jack Collins. In 2013, the best known Flowing Hair dollar sold for over $10 million, the highest price of any coin sold in numismatic history, having previously been sold for $7.85 million in 2010.
Happy 4th of July!
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