Coin World

In February of 1873, the San Francisco Branch Mint reportedly struck 700 Seated Liberty dollars, 5,000 Seated Liberty, No Arrows half dollars and 324,000 Seated Liberty half dimes. After all of these years, one of the last great mysteries of numismatics still remains. What happened to those 700 1873-S dollars and 5,000 1873-S No Arrows half dollars? 

On Feb. 12, 1873, the Mint Act was passed that, among other effects, would in part mark the end of the silver half dime and standard silver dollar; added weight to the half dollar; and paved the way for the Trade dollar. The legislation took effect on April 1. 

For a generation of numismatic researchers it was assumed that all of the 1873-S Seated Liberty dollars and half dollars were melted before they left the San Francisco Mint. However, documents stored at the Federal Archives in San Bruno, Calif., point to a different scenario with regard to the fate of the 700 1873-S Seated Liberty dollars. 

Sept. 2, while examining a collection of 18th through 20th century U.S. coins, likely assembled between the 1920s and 1940s, early dollar specialist and researcher W. David Perkins encountered an example of the 1799 Draped Bust, Heraldic Eagle with Shattered Reverse.

The coin is a result of production from the only known use of the die, in the BB-163 die marriage, according to Perkins. Perkins explains in the Sept. 7 issue of the JR Newsletter, a weekly electronic publication of the John Reich Collectors Society, that the BB-163's obverse, in contrast, was used with a succession of six reverse dies, producing coins from six 1799-dated die marriages.