Gold dollar
The gold dollar or gold one-dollar piece is a gold coin that was struck as a regular issue by the United States Bureau of the Mint from 1849 to 1889. The coin had three types over its lifetime, all designed by Mint Chief Engraver James B. Longacre. The Type 1 issue has the smallest diameter of any United States coin minted to date. A gold dollar coin had been proposed several times in the 1830s and 1840s, but was not initially adopted.
About Gold dollar in brief
The gold dollar or gold one-dollar piece is a gold coin that was struck as a regular issue by the United States Bureau of the Mint from 1849 to 1889. The coin had three types over its lifetime, all designed by Mint Chief Engraver James B. Longacre. The Type 1 issue has the smallest diameter of any United States coin minted to date. A gold dollar coin had been proposed several times in the 1830s and 1840s, but was not initially adopted. Congress was finally galvanized into action by the increased supply of bullion caused by the California gold rush, and in 1849 authorized a gold dollar. In its final years, it was struck in small numbers, causing speculation by hoarders. The regular issue gold dollar was last struck in 1889; the following year, Congress ended the series. Damaged common date gold dollars tend to be worth anywhere from melt value to about US$110 ; common dates of higher circulated grades sell for about US $200 while rarer coins in high grades can be worth up to many thousands. In January 1849, North Carolina Representative James Iver McKay, the chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means, solicited the views of Mint Director Robert M. Patterson on the golddollar. In 1846, McKay introduced a bill for a golddollar, which was referred to his committee. Even before 1848, there was much discussion in the press about the proposed coin; one newspaper published a proposal for an annular gold dollar that is now the largest gold coin in the world.
This renewed calls for the gold dollar, as well as for a higher denomination than the eagle, then the highest denomination for a U.S. coin. This seemed to satisfy the committee as nothing was done for the time, and when a dollar was proposed again in 1846 the committee recommended against it. This seems to satisfy more than twenty years of commerce, more than 20 years after the coin was struck more than once, and the committee’s committee recommends against it again. The gold dollar is the only gold coin of that size in the history of commerce. It is also the only coin that would be convenient, and as it would be eminently so, neither silver nor paper should be allowed to take its place. In 1791, Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton in 1791 proposed that the one- dollar denomination be struck both as a gold and a silver coin, representative of the two metals which he proposed be made legal tender. He told Treasury Secretary John C. Spencer that the Spanish and Colombian half-escudos, were unpopular and had not been struck for twenty years. The first gold coins were struck in 1831, at the private mint of Christopher Bechtler in North Carolina. The coins circulated through the mountains of North Carolina and Georgia, and were now and then seen further away. The dollars and other small gold coins issued by Bechtlers circulated through that region, and are now and now seen further.
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This page is based on the article Gold dollar published in Wikipedia (as of Oct. 31, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
