To be sure, silver dollars were used in circulation, particularly in the American West, where they were ideal to pass across a bar or use in a poker game. However, in the major cities and centers of civilization, few people cared to jangle a pocket full of heavy dollar-size coins. Most stayed in banks, where they could be obtained on special request.

The Pittman Act of 1918 provided for the wholesale melting of silver dollars, and 270,232,722 dollars were reduced to silver bullion. Unfortunately, or, depending on how you look at it, fortunately, no record was kept of the specific dates and mintmarks melted. Still, silver dollars amounting to the hundreds of millions remained in Treasury and bank vaults. In 1921 it was decided to coin additional silver dollars, and the Morgan design, unused since 1904, was resurrected for further use.

In December 1921 a new design, the Peace dollar, appeared. Peace silver dollars were produced through 1935. Peace dollars suffered their own melting situation; tens of millions were reduced to silver bullion in order to obtain metal for use in the Manhattan Project, which saw the production of the first atomic bomb. Again, no records were kept of the dates and mintmarks destroyed.

Throughout the 1940s there was a relatively minor collecting interest in dollars. In the 1950s the interest grew somewhat, and such dealers as Norman Shultz and Bebee's made a specialty of Morgan and Peace dollars, offering many different varieties for scarcely over face value. Toward the end of the 1950s, Harry Forman, the Philadelphia dealer, developed a lively trade in selling Carson City and other dollars in roll and bag quantities, as did several others. Investment interest was piqued, and by the early 1960s many issues had shown an attractive rise in price from the levels of a decade earlier.

In particular there was one great rarity in the Morgan silver dollar series, the 1903-O, which catalogued for $1,500 in the standard arbiter of values, A Guide Book of United States Coins. Although mintage figures revealed that 4,450,000 1903-O dollars had been struck, it was generally assumed that nearly all were melted in 1918 under the provisions of the Pittman Act. Well worn specimens came on the market occasionally, but Uncirculated pieces appeared in auctions less often than examples of that great American rarity, the 1804 silver dollar!