1885 Proof Trade Dollar

A dollar made for China

In the 1860s the falling price of silver, driven by new mining in the American West, pushed officials to look for an export market for it. In China the Mexican peso was the trusted coin of trade, and the lighter American silver dollar was unpopular, so American merchants had to buy Mexican or Spanish dollars to do business. Deputy Comptroller of the Currency John Jay Knox, encouraged by former San Francisco Mint official Louis A. Garnett, proposed a heavier 'commercial dollar' to compete in East Asia.

The Coinage Act of 1873, signed by President Ulysses S. Grant on February 12, 1873, created a trade dollar of 420 grains, 90 percent silver. A last-minute rider made it legal tender for debts up to five dollars. Chief Engraver William Barber's design shows Liberty seated on bales of merchandise, facing left, toward Asia, holding out an olive branch over the sea; the reverse eagle holds arrows and an olive branch, and the weight and fineness are spelled out on it. The first trade dollars were struck at a ceremony on July 11, 1873, and most of that year's coins were shipped to China.

At home the coin became a nuisance. As silver kept falling, bullion producers had their metal struck into trade dollars and sold them at a discount, and employers paid workers in coins that banks and merchants often refused. Congress stripped the trade dollar of legal tender status on July 22, 1876, the only U.S. coin ever demonetized this way, and orders for business strikes finally ended on February 22, 1878. Proofs for collectors continued, ending officially in 1883, when the final 979 were made.

That should have been the end of it. In 1908, though, it emerged that ten Proofs dated 1884 and five dated 1885 had been made, with no entry in the official records and no public notice. Research by Carl W.A. Carlson in the papers of Charles Barber indicates that both were struck in the years they bear, not years later for collectors. Exactly why, and on whose order, is still not known.

Snowden, Idler and Haseltine

The trail runs through a small circle of Philadelphia insiders. Carlson found records of a pair of 1884 trade dollar dies delivered to the coining department on January 3, 1884, and it is believed a last-minute order stopped the coins from being sold; Philadelphia Mint Superintendent A. Loudon Snowden likely kept them. Every recorded 1884 pedigree begins with Snowden; the earliest owners listed for the 1885 coins are William Idler and John W. Haseltine.

The coins reached collectors through John W. Haseltine, a Philadelphia dealer, and his son-in-law and partner Stephen K. Nagy, who were known for moving clandestine Mint products into the market. In 1908 they 'discovered' the 1884 and 1885 Proofs in the estate of William Idler, Haseltine's father-in-law, who had close informal ties to Mint officials.

Collectors were skeptical at first. Haseltine met resistance when he first offered the coins, and some dismissed them as fantasy pieces struck on a whim. The publicity eventually won out, and an 1885 trade dollar first appeared at auction in July 1913, the Granberg coin, which brought $1,140.

It is still possible the five had a legitimate purpose, such as inclusion in that year's Proof sets; the series was not formally discontinued until 1887. But the lack of any record has led many to conclude they were struck clandestinely.

The Eliasberg coin

The finest of the five belonged to William Cutler Atwater and was sold at auction with his collection in June 1946 for $1,450. It went to Louis E. Eliasberg Sr., the Baltimore financier who assembled the only complete collection of U.S. coins by date and mintmark, and it stayed with his family until the 1997 sale of his copper, nickel and silver coins, when it brought $907,500 at auction.

Dealer Jay Parrino bought it there. In late 1999 it changed hands privately for $1,500,000, and in January 2006 it sold privately for a reported $3.3 million to the owner of the Greensboro Collection. Accounts of the owners in between differ: one lists Bruce Morelan and John Albanese, while Q. David Bowers wrote that it went to Morelan and then to Ron Gillio.

On the evening of January 10, 2019, the coin was offered in Orlando during the Florida United Numismatists convention, only the third time it had been offered at auction. More than 30 bids later, before a standing-room-only crowd, it sold for $3,960,000 to Dell Loy Hansen, a businessman from Logan, Utah, bidding with dealer John Brush.

Hansen was two years into what he and Brush called the 'Eliasberg Quest,' an effort to assemble a complete collection of U.S. coins from 1792 to the present. He already owned the finest 1884 trade dollar, a PCGS PR67 he had bought a year earlier, and said the 1885 'will match incredibly' with it. 'When I viewed the coin in-hand,' he said, 'I was simply mesmerized.'

Identifying the five

All five 1885 trade dollars are Proofs, and each has a name drawn from a past owner. The Eliasberg coin was graded PF66 by NGC when it sold in 2019 and was later crossed over to PCGS as PR65+ Cameo; it is the finest known.

The others are the Granberg specimen, which passed through Col. E.H.R. Green, Jerome Kern's collection and Amon Carter Jr.; the so-called Adolphe Menjou specimen, sold in 1950 billed as from the Adolphe Menjou Collection, though it was not; the King Farouk specimen, sold from the Egyptian palace collections in 1954 and later owned by Ambassador and Mrs. R. Henry Norweb, graded PCGS PR62; and the Fred Olsen specimen, estimated at about PR60.

Like every trade dollar, the 1885 weighs 27.2 grams (420 grains) of 90 percent silver and 10 percent copper, measures 38.1 millimeters, and has a reeded edge. Collector demand has also produced many well-made counterfeit trade dollars.

The 1885 is often compared with the 1913 Liberty Head nickel. Both were born under unrecorded circumstances, both are said to number exactly five, and the finest example of each passed through Eliasberg's collection.

From $1,140 to nearly $4 million

For decades the 1885 sold for four figures: $1,140 in 1913, $1,450 for the Eliasberg coin in 1946, $1,665 for the Farouk coin in 1954. By the 1980s the coins were bringing six figures, and in 2004 the Farouk-Norweb coin passed $1 million at auction. The Eliasberg coin's 2019 price was then the second-highest ever paid at auction for an NGC-certified coin.

The trade dollar itself had an unhappy end. A law that took effect on February 14, 1887, without President Grover Cleveland's signature let holders redeem unmutilated coins for six months; many could not, because Chinese merchants had stamped them with chop marks to vouch for their silver. The Coinage Act of 1965 quietly made trade dollars legal tender again, long after their value to collectors had far outrun their face value.

None of the great public collections in the United States owns an 1885 trade dollar, so every one of the five remains in private hands.

The numbers

Mintage

5 Proofs, not recorded officially

Known survivors

5

Weight

27.2 grams (420 grains)

Diameter

38.1 mm

Composition

90% silver, 10% copper

Edge

Reeded

Designer

William Barber

This coin's grade

NGC PF66 at its 2019 sale; later PCGS PR65+ Cameo

Timeline

1. Feb 12, 1873

   President Grant signs the Coinage Act of 1873, creating the trade dollar.

2. Jul 11, 1873

   The first trade dollars are struck at a ceremony at the Philadelphia Mint.

3. Jul 22, 1876

   Congress revokes the trade dollar's legal tender status.

4. Feb 22, 1878

   Orders for business-strike trade dollars end.

5. 1883

   The final 979 officially recorded Proof trade dollars are struck.

6. Jan 3, 1884

   A pair of 1884 trade dollar dies is delivered to the coining department.

7. 1885

   Five Proof trade dollars dated 1885 are struck, with no official record.

8. Feb 14, 1887

   A law providing for redemption of trade dollars takes effect.

9. 1908

   John W. Haseltine and Stephen K. Nagy reveal the 1884 and 1885 Proofs from William Idler's estate.

10. Jul 1913

    An 1885 trade dollar appears at auction for the first time, bringing $1,140.

11. Jun 1946

    The Atwater coin, later the Eliasberg specimen, sells for $1,450.

12. Feb 1954

    The last of the five reaches auction, from King Farouk's collections.

13. 1965

    The Coinage Act of 1965 restores legal tender status to trade dollars.

14. Apr 1997

    The Eliasberg specimen sells at auction for $907,500.

15. 1999

    Sold privately for $1,500,000.

16. Jan 2006

    Sold privately for a reported $3.3 million to the owner of the Greensboro Collection.

17. Jan 10, 2019

    Sold for $3,960,000 at auction in Orlando to Dell Loy Hansen.

The world in 1885

• Feb 16, 1885

  Charles Dow publishes the first edition of the Dow Jones average.

• Feb 18, 1885

  Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is published in the United States.

• Feb 21, 1885

  President Chester A. Arthur dedicates the Washington Monument.

• Mar 4, 1885

  Grover Cleveland is sworn in as the 22nd president.

• Jul 23, 1885

  Ulysses S. Grant, who signed the trade dollar into law, dies at Mount McGregor, New York.

• Sep 2, 1885

  In the Rock Springs massacre in Wyoming, white miners attack Chinese coworkers, killing 28.

• Oct 10, 1885

  The Army Corps of Engineers sets off the largest explosion ever made for a non-military purpose, removing the Hell Gate rocks in New York's East River.

Price record

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, 1885 Proof Trade Dollar is number 9 of 100 in the coins entries of the FLOAT 100. 96 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (8 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• The trade dollar is the only U.S. coin whose legal tender status was revoked by Congress; the 1965 Coinage Act restored it.
• Liberty on the trade dollar faces left, toward East Asia, where the coins were meant to be spent.
• Ohio Senator John Sherman insisted the coin's weight and fineness be printed on its reverse, which historian Don Taxay found incomprehensible because Chinese merchants would never understand them.
• Many trade dollars could not be redeemed in 1887 because Chinese merchants had stamped them with chop marks to vouch for their silver.
• The coins first came to light in 1908, more than 20 years after they were struck, from the estate of a man with informal ties to Mint officials.
• No American museum owns an 1885 trade dollar; all five are in private hands.
• The so-called Adolphe Menjou specimen was sold in 1950 as part of the Adolphe Menjou Collection, though it was not actually from that collection.