History

Morgan Silver Dollars

A story of money, politics, bimetallism, and war.

When I was a young boy in the mid-1950’s, banks still had silver dollars. You could walk in and trade paper dollars for real silver coins. You could spend them at any store; some cash registers even still had a slot for these.

But paper bills were what people used. Silver dollars are big coins; more than two or three would be annoying in your pocket or your hand. A store would take them as payment, but they wouldn’t try to give them as change…