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To: Freedom4US
In the 1700’s, the Spanish Dollar, the then standard, contained about 374.875 grains of silver.

Standard in the colonies? Certainly not in Europe.

On 8 Aug, 1786, the Continental Congress ordered that the U.S. coinage standard should be a ratio of 11:1, specie metal to alloying agents ( for both gold and silver. ); and that the U.S. dollar would contain precisely 375.64 grains of silver.

And how many of those bad boys were minted by the Continental Congress? Any guesses?

They pretty much knocked off minting silver dollars from around 1806 to about 1837, since the overseas flow was huge (they were worth more than the Spanish dollars, higher silver content)

Er, no. 8 reales were minted in Mexico with 0.7797 oz of silver from 1806-1811, were minted with a higher silver content (0.7859 oz) from 1811-1821, and after sporadic minting, with the same weight of silver from 1825-1914 (either as an 8 reales or a peso).

US silver (dollars and halves) were exported because the market ratio between gold and silver valued silver more highly than the statutory ratio set by Congress.

58 posted on 05/29/2007 7:49:33 PM PDT by DeaconBenjamin2
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To: DeaconBenjamin2

Well, I haven’t looked up the mintage figures. A few hundred thousand maybe? I didn’t mean to be persnickety, lol.


60 posted on 05/29/2007 8:07:48 PM PDT by Freedom4US
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