Collections of Old Silver Dollars

The hobby of collecting old silver dollars is one that appeals to a great many people but one thing to keep in mind is the appeal of old coins is often in the fact that there may be several designs from even one minting year. The difference in designs these old coins is due to the early practice that was employed of hand engraving each die thus a collector will find well over a few dozen varieties for all dates between 1795 - 1803. These early examples of coins that were struck by the United States Mint contain a certain aura about their design that has made these old silver dollars appeal to collectors.

The penny is the only other denomination that was minted every year from its beginning in the first ten years of mint production. Because there was a continuation of the exploration of US dollars, President Thomas Jefferson halted the production of these old silver dollars. The US dollars were then replaced by the slightly heavier Spanish 8 Reale and the US coins were sent to the Caribbean where they were then returned to the US and recoined free of charge into additional US dollars with the exporter taking possession of any difference in silver content. This process would ensure that there would be no circulation of dollars within the United States but these old silver dollars would be exported overseas while the old, foreign money would remain in circulation in the United States. This process was called Gresham's Law.

This same process was utilized for some time after the inception of the 20th century. Any coins that contained too much precious metal was melted down and then sold as bullion while coins that were too light were exported to foreign countries where they were exchanged for heavier weight coins. The difficulty in maintaining the balance of these two processes is what led to the discontinuation of gold in coin minting during the 1930s and 1940s with silver following the same path in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Today old silver dollars are of greater importance to collectors than they have been in the past. Though they may not hold a value as legal tender in many cases they are worth a great deal to collectors and investors. An old coin has a higher value when it is less common because collectors are willing to pay a great deal more for a coin they is difficult to obtain. Likewise investors are willing to go to greater lengths to sell their collections to the collectors. The more difficult it is to locate an old silver dollar coin the more you will have to pay as a collector and the more the investor will profit from the transaction.

The coins collectors choose to add to their collections tend to be because of certain designs that appeal to them or a design that was minted in limited quantities. Like any other coins you will also find a few coins that were struck incorrectly and these will also appeal to collectors more than a coin that was perfectly struck when it was minted.