Most numismatists are familiar with the United States Trade dollar, a coin born of the vast silver production at the Comstock Lode in Nevada. It was produced for the China trade, and millions of them were shipped to the Celestial Empire during the years 1873 to 1878. Many now carry Chinese chopmarks. However, the Trade dollar was not created in a vacuum. Earlier U.S. silver coins were sent to East Asia to trade for tea, porcelain, silk, nankeen and other goods.
Did Seated Liberty Dollars Circulate?
Among those earlier coins was the Seated Liberty dollar, which was produced at the four U.S. mints from 1840 to 1873. Writes David Bowers, “Like its immediate predecessors, Liberty Seated dollars dated 1860 are believed to have been intended primarily for use in the export trade to China ... They never were available from the Mint at face value, and all were paid out at $1.08 each to bullion dealers, banks and others who fed them into the China trade.”
As a rule, silver dollars that had an intrinsic value of over a dollar became de facto bullion and were exported. Most years of production of the Seated Liberty dollar saw its value above a dollar. For example, the silver value in a dollar in 1840, its first year, was $1.023. But did they circulate? Economist
