Today's Silver Dollar Coin Values

Today’s Silver Dollar Coin Values

Silver Dollar Coin Values, although changed and considered non-monetary by modern fiscal policy, nevertheless remain a valuable store of wealth.

"…..Fortunately for the central bankers, money seems to be the hardest thing in the world for the average tax-payer to understand….." ~Richard Russell, Feb. 2007

What is the Gold/Silver Standard?

According to the Dictionary of American History, "The gold standard is a monetary system in which the unit of value – be it the dollar, the pound, franc, or some other unit in which prices and wages are customarily expressed and debts are usually contracted – consists of the value of a fixed quantity of gold in a free gold market." Basically, US dollars were backed by a fixed quantity of gold and silver which provided its value. Without this value tied to the dollar, its value is only worth as much as the paper that dollars are made of.

History of the Gold/Silver Standard

The US was on a bi-metallic standard, then a gold standard from 1792 to 1933, with some periods of a paper greenback policy in between. The Gold Standard Act of 1900 made an otherwise common thing, conducting transactions settled in gold, which the public was already doing, officially legal. Between 1873 and 1912, around 40 major nations in the world operated on the gold standard, which was more stable and dependable than the bi-metallic and paper standards. WWI caused these nations to abandon the gold standard amid promises to return to it as soon as feasible. Most of these countries did return to it. By 1931, however, the collapses of several European countries, especially Great Britain, lead to the end of the gold standard as we know it today. John Maynard Keynes blamed the gold standard for Britain’s woes even though history shows that Britain did well with the same standard for the previous 200 years (Kutler). The US continued on with the gold standard until 1933 when Pres. Roosevelt ordered banks to cease payouts in gold and for the public to turn in their gold in exchange for other “money”.

At the same time, Congress and Pres. Roosevelt devalued the dollar of its gold content by about 40%. Then Congress raised the official dollar exchange rate from $20.67 per ounce of gold to $35 an ounce. So, the other "money" that Congress doled out on the public, after they took their gold, was devalued while gold's value was increased. Now, the gold standard was only available to other countries but not for domestic transactions. This new higher gold price increased the supply as gold mining ramped up. This new supply coming into the US did not benefit US citizens who were forbidden to deposit or withdraw gold in US banks.

Congress wanted to end the Depression by revaluing gold but this failed. The Depression ended only by the hyper inflation due to WWII, when gold was again abandoned. After WWII, the US and the rest of the world was on a shaky dollar-gold exchange under the Bretton Woods Agreement of 1944.

The End of the Gold/Silver Standard

The US, while running deficits, foreign wars and trade imbalances, and other expensive policies, caused some countries to have more dollars than it wanted. France was one country who demanded gold for their dollar reserves, of which it felt it had too much of, by the end of the 1960s. US gold reserves dwindled from $23 billion to around $10 billion by 1964 (Kutler). The US Treasury, and other nations who signed the Bretton Woods Agreement, quietly unloaded gold on the market to keep prices from rising. They needed to do this to maintain confidence in the dollar which, by the 1960s, was the world’s reserve currency, and still is today. With rising gold prices, and deficits, and dwindling gold (and silver) reserves, the US took the country completely off the gold standard by not allowing foreign nations to exchange dollars for gold in 1971. Silver as money was also greatly devalued as its content was decreased from US coins. 1971 is also the year where the Federal Reserve started to report aggregate money supply figures, M1, M2, and M3. M1 is the most liquid form of money that the pubic holds. M2 is M1 plus savings deposits and time deposits under $100,000, and money market accounts. M3 is M2 plus large deposits over $100,000 and institutional balances, including US dollars held in other countries’ banks. M3 is no longer reported, however. The costs of data collection for M3 were judged to outweigh the benefits of reporting it. We no longer know what this figure truly is. What we do know is that currently, gold is no longer a part of the currency system and silver is not present in today's coinage. This is the monetary policy we live under today.