Owyhee Outpost by the Owyhee County Historical Society, May 1986

Description: Owyhee Outpost by the Owyhee County Historical Society, May 1986 Murphy, Idaho. Photos 1 and 2 show the front and back cover. Photo # 3 shows the Table of Contents. Photos 4 and 5 show the Trade Dollar Mine in Long Gulch and the Trade Dollar Miners. Pleas see below for more details on Trade Dollars. Photo # 6 shows an actual trade dollar with chop marks. This picture is not in Owyhee Outpost booklet. But the Trade Dollar was a big deal 150 years ago. The reason was the Western states were producing to much silver and at the time the United States Government was required to purchase the newly mined silver that they didn't need, so the United States exported the silver to China in the form of a trade dollar. What are Chop Marked Trade Dollars?There are probably no coins more interesting than United States Trade dollars. The list of unique features of this dollar is long. To begin with, they were slightly larger than the standard silver dollar, and that was unusual.Of course, Trade dollars were larger for a reason – they were designed to be exported to help expand trade with China, whose merchants wanted silver coins, not gold. The merchants in China might have accepted Trade dollars, but back in the United States a couple of years after they were first issued, no merchant wanted to accept them, at least as a dollar. That’s because they had their legal tender status revoked, making them the only coin in U.S. history that was circulating in significant numbers at less than face value.That alone would make the Trade dollar interesting, but there are other parts to the story which go back to the idea of having them used in the China trade. In fact, American merchants since the late 1700s had been interested in trade with China. That interest grew as the nation grew. When commercial activity in San Francisco increased with the discovery of gold, many merchants in San Francisco turned their eyes toward the Orient as a source for silks, tea and other products. The problem was having a coin the Chinese would accept. An early indication of the matter was seen in the 20,000 mintage of the 1859-S Seated Liberty dollar. The 1859-S was created at the request of San Francisco business interests primarily for use as export, and in the years that followed, other ideas would be considered.The Trade dollar was a classic case of killing two birds with one stone. The United States had more than enough silver, and the coin being larger than a standard silver dollar would use more silver, which was fine with everyone concerned. The silver interests were also happy with the notion that once made into Trade dollars, the silver would be leaving the country and present no more threat to the domestic price. On top of those advantages, the merchants trying to trade with China would no longer have to pay extra to have their U.S. coins converted into Mexican silver, which the Chinese would accept.The idea of a Trade dollar clearly had advantages for almost everyone, but the first hurdle was getting the Chinese to accept the new coins. As lovers of silver, the Chinese carefully studied the first shipment of Trade dollars, and much to the relief of those sponsoring these coins, approved them. Ultimately, however, acceptance of the Trade dollar in China would not be universal, and that meant the coin was not as successful as some had hoped.Although the Trade dollar had problems in the end, something over $30 million in Trade dollars headed off to China, which was not an insignificant sum back in the 1870s. It has generally been believed that the dates from the first two years, 1873 and 1874, were exported in particularly large numbers. Over the course of regular production from 1873 through 1878, the Trade dollar was produced at Philadelphia, Carson City and San Francisco, in large numbers for silver dollars for the time, and some examples from all dates and all years were thought to have been exported.When a Trade dollar reaching the ports in China was accepted by a merchant as being full value, the merchant would chop the coin, which was to stamp his unique Chinese character on it. As a coin changed hands from one merchant to another, it could receive a number of different chops from the various merchants. The coins with such chops have always been an interesting but not a well understood group, as they present a problem in terms of how collectors evaluate them.When the United States was forced to redeem Trade dollars some years after the last were issued, it excluded coins which had been mutilated (chop marked). That was basically a step to avoid having to redeem Trade dollars which had returned to the United States but had been chopped by the merchants of China. Some collectors have tended to view them the same way as damaged examples, worth less than a regular Trade dollar.Over time, however, some have come to appreciate the chop marked dollar, as in a sense, it really tells a story. Someone who can read the Chinese characters on a Trade dollar can trace the travels of the coin back in the 1870s from one merchant to another in a Chinese port. That makes them fascinating to study, as the characters are each different, representing a certain business at the time.Photos 9, 10 and 11 show a stack of silver bars and talks about the mule teams needed to transport the ore. Photo # 12 show the remments of an old post it stick on the inside cover page.Shelf # 9

Price: 39 USD

Location: Springville, California

End Time: 2025-01-21T00:11:00.000Z

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