One of the greatest mysteries in United States numismatics is this: What happened to the 12,000 1878-S Seated Liberty half dollars? We know that around 50 exist today, but where did the rest of them go?
A Busy Year at the San Francisco Mint
It was on Feb. 22, 1878, that Treasury Secretary John Sherman officially cancelled the Trade dollar. By that time, 1,695,819 of them had been produced at our Western mint carrying the date 1878. However, by early April there was a total of 4,162,000 1878 Trade dollars with the famous “S” mintmark of the San Francisco Mint. Those additional coins were produced for bullion depositors who had previously earmarked them for the China trade. Not coincidentally, the Bland-Allison Act became law on Feb. 28, 1878, a mere six days after the Trade dollar was administratively ended.
Bland-Allison compelled the Treasury department to purchase between $2 million and $4 million worth of silver bullion each and every month. That silver was used
