"Peace dollars" arrive at Chariton banks

Somewhere around here I have a silver dollar with a hole drilled in it, dated "1921" and perhaps collected a century ago, when "peace dollars" first were issued, then modified at some point to be worn as a piece of jewelry.

The Chariton Leader of Jan. 22, 1922, reported the arrival in town of these coins as follows: "The first of the new peace dollars, the first silver dollar in the history of the United States to contain exactly a dollar's worth of silver, made their appearance in Chariton last Friday, when the Chariton and Lucas County National Bank received 150 of the new coins.

"The new dollars bear the date, 1921. Press reports state that more than 700,000 of them have already been coined in the Philadelphia mint and other mints are stamping them out daily."

Editor Henry Gittinger's statement claiming that these were the first silver dollars to contain exactly a dollar's worth of silver is, by the way, not true. The actual value of the precious metal contained in coins always has fluctuated. But then Henry had a habit of making stuff up.

These were among the first silver dollars issued in the United States since 1904, when the last "Morgan" silver dollars --- named after its designer, George T. Morgan, and introduced in 1878 --- was minted.

By the end of World War I, however, roughly 47 percent of the U.S. supply of Morgans had been melted down and sold to Britain as part of an effort to shore up the symbolic foundation of that nation's paper currency. 

The Pitman Act of 1918 directed the U.S. Mint to issue a fresh supply of dollars, commencing in 1921. Initially, the Morgan design was used, but after Dec. 22, 1921, a new design commemorating the peace that followed World War I was introduced and substituted.

Peace dollars were minted until 1928, when the supply of Pitman Act silver was exhausted. But $7 million more were struck during 1934 and 1935 after the U.S. government invested in silver to shore up the precious metals market. These were the last dollars to contain the traditional mix of metals --- 90 percent silver and 10 percent copper.