US Coins, World Coins, and More => US Coins, tokens and medals => Topic started by: FilthyBroke on January 24, 2010, 07:35:22 PM
Title: What really is considered Old West coinage.....
Post by: FilthyBroke on January 24, 2010, 07:35:22 PM
What is the quintessential coinage of the Old West? I want to know what pays for a beer at the bar or goods at the local General Store. And did Mexican coins still circulate up to the 1870s and 80s? I know that U.S. coinage was the only legal tender but it's hard to imagine that all others were immediately removed from circulation.
Just wanted to see what you all thought on the subject.
Title: Re: What really is considered Old West coinage.....
Post by: coinsarefun on January 24, 2010, 07:56:41 PM
Just a wild guess.................Morgans?
Title: Re: What really is considered Old West coinage.....
Post by: Conderluva on January 24, 2010, 09:22:51 PM
Quintessential would probably vary depending on the size, location and activity of the area in question. I would imagine it could range from U.S. coinage, foreign coinage, local token coinage to probably just about anything they could get their hands on that someone else would accept as payment. I don't have a great answer but Stef's sounds good. Maybe lower denomination though. Don't know if a lot of average people would be spending morgans often. Could be wrong though, what were wages like?
Title: Re: What really is considered Old West coinage.....
Post by: FilthyBroke on January 25, 2010, 07:46:41 AM
I can't imagine that wages were much more than a buck or two a week in many cases. I have always assumed that lower denominations were the norm. The more I think about it, the location would surely be a key factor, too. It may well be that the coins were a good mix of different types, or what was available in the area. There seems to be a lot of possible factors involved.
Title: Re: What really is considered Old West coinage.....
Post by: walmann on January 28, 2010, 11:03:36 AM
As much as many consider the Morgan, especially the CC's, the dollar of the Old/Wild West, silver , while more often used in the West vs the East, silver was resisted and looked down upon versus gold. The average person did not like to accept change given in the form of silver when they used a gold piece for the purchase. The actual bullion value of silver pieces were not on par with the equivalent gold pieces (IE a $1 gold piece had more bullion value than a $1 silver dollar as would two silver halves or four quarters). This fact tends to be forgotten these days in our clad coin era while silver is much more desirable.
The history is both complex and interesting, involving valuation of metals, cessation of producing bank notes in denominations lower than $5, purity of the coins and Treasury holdings of both gold and silver. In relation to mintage and holdings of silver by the Treasury, silver dollars did not really become well accepted by the public and banks (previously much resistance by the banks) till after 1886 with government issuing silver certificates in the lower denominations of 1, 2 and 5 dollars. By 1889 people generally were no longer distrustful of silver and the paper silver certificates were also being widely used.
So for much of the time period of the Old West (1866-1900) silver dollars were not very popular.
Title: Re: What really is considered Old West coinage.....
Post by: FilthyBroke on January 28, 2010, 11:25:44 AM
Interesting, Walmann...I wouldn't have thought that gold coins were that common in circulation, unless it were far west where they were mining it and producing their own fractionals.
Title: Re: What really is considered Old West coinage.....
Post by: walmann on January 28, 2010, 11:53:24 AM
Interesting, Walmann...I wouldn't have thought that gold coins were that common in circulation, unless it were far west where they were mining it and producing their own fractional.
You can get a feel for the confidence gold carried, if I recall correctly, by the very brief write up on California gold in the Redbook. I'm at work and don't remember the exact years involved but despite laws, these coins and tokens were produced (from the late 1840's) into the mid 1880's, with use of earlier dates from the 1850's and 1860's being used to skirt laws from the mid 1860s. These coins were struck in denominations of 25 and 50 cents as well as one dollar.
As much as they later become "suspect", they intially enjoyed wide useage and acceptance.
You must also consider this is the time period where paper money was becoming accepted. The Federal government issuing its first notes in 1861 and before the end of the civil war was issuing gold certificates. By the late 1880s paper currency was readily accepted.
Title: Re: What really is considered Old West coinage.....
Post by: Scottishmoney on January 29, 2010, 08:08:13 AM
thisthread:>
So here we go...
(http://www.scottishmoney.net/usa/1854ten.jpg)
(http://www.scottishmoney.net/usa/187420)
(http://www.scottishmoney.net/usa/1893cc.jpg)
Title: Re: What really is considered Old West coinage.....
Post by: cpm9ball on February 01, 2010, 09:57:11 PM
Hi, my name is Chris and this is my first post on this site. I first started collecting Morgans in 1957, took a hiatus from the hobby for about 20 years and then rekindled my interest in Morgans about 25 years ago.
Regarding coinage of the Old West, you should keep in mind that the U.S. was charging a fee to the mining companies for turning their bullion into coins. It was usually about 5%. Some of the companies objected to this fee, $50,000 for every million dolllars of buillion processed, and would ship their bullion to England where there was no processing fee. For that reason, silver coinage was in short supply from the 1850's - 1870's. Even after the Carson City Mint began striking the Morgan in 1878, most of these coins never saw the light of day. They were eventually shipped to the U.S. Treasury where they remained for decades until the Treasury releases of the 1930's - 1970's.
It is generally thought that the Morgan dollar was just not popular, but I've always wondered if it wasn't because of poor marketing. Any time a new product is introduced, it invariably takes time to gain public acceptance. Perhaps the CC Mint didn't try hard enough. Who knows? One thing is known for sure, and that is that west of the Mississippi, the Morgan dollar was more popular in the state of Montana than anywhere else. Banks couldn't keep enough on hand. Even today, the populace is so enamored by the Morgan that even heavily circulated specimens are "scooped up" immediately by old timers at public sales and local auctions.
Chris
Title: Re: What really is considered Old West coinage.....
Post by: Deagle74 on February 02, 2010, 01:20:46 AM
:Welcome; aboard Chris!!! And nice info on the topic...thx! Rok
Title: Re: What really is considered Old West coinage.....
Post by: FilthyBroke on February 02, 2010, 06:20:51 AM
Welcome aboard, Chris! :Welcome;
That's interesting that they would ship bullion overseas to save money, I hadn't heard this before. Could it have really been cheaper this way? I would think that the risk was much higher of total loss on that sort of venture.
Title: Re: What really is considered Old West coinage.....
Post by: cpm9ball on February 02, 2010, 10:43:39 AM
Actually, the ocean route was about the same distance to England as it was to the eastern U.S. because once you rounded the easternmost part of South America the ships had to head northwest to reach the Chesapeake Bay. The biggest risk for the ocean voyage to the eastern U.S. was sailing in and around the Caribbean where piracy was still common even in those days. Piracy wasn't as much of a concern in the wide-open waters of the Atlantic enroute to England. (Note: I learned this on the History Channel.)
If you want to read a pretty good account about the silver production in the west, you might want to get a copy of "The Crime of 1873 - The Comstock Connection" by Robert Van Ryzin. It can be a little "slow" as reading goes because the author constantly inserts historical documents and quotes, but it is loaded with a ton of historical information.
Chris
Title: Re: What really is considered Old West coinage.....
Post by: coinsarefun on February 02, 2010, 11:27:34 AM
Hi Chris, great info and :Welcome; aboard!!
Stefanie
Title: Re: What really is considered Old West coinage.....
Post by: cpm9ball on February 02, 2010, 01:13:32 PM
Thanks, Stef!
Where does one go to get a beer around here? :LOL; I noticed that you don't have the little "ROFL guy" or an "OFF TOPIC" sign, but seriously, while I have your attention....................
I was looking for an FAQ or something on posting photos. Is your procedure similar to VAMWorld in that you must enter the photo into an archive before you can post it? Or, is it similar to NGC where you can post it directly from the source?
Unfortunately, I won't be able to post full-coin images for the time being because my software program became corrupted and had to be removed, but I do have some microphotography images that I would like to share with others.
Thanks!
Chris
Title: What really is considered Old West coinage.....
Post by: BCNumismatics on February 02, 2010, 05:22:17 PM