Q. David Bowers
More About New Orleans Dollars
I never heard of bags of 1895-O,1896-O, or 1897-O turning up anywhere, although I think Joel Coen in New York City had 10 rolls of 1897-O at one time. I never saw a bag of Uncirculated 1886-O dollars, but in one bag I did find a couple hundred pieces that were minimum Uncirculated. I recall selling Amon Carter a few rolls of these.
I have also found 1878-CCs in quantities of a few hundred Uncirculated coins mixed in a bag with other dates that were worn. I never bothered to try to figure out what 200 Uncirculated '78-CCs were doing in a used bag of silver dollars, but you know, who knows? I suspect that for about 50 years earlier, during the time that there were some collectors of dollars and a little money could be made, people with the right contacts could get the right coins held by the government.
I entered the coin collecting scene in 1954, which is when theearly dollars first broke, (QDB note: Actually, Morgan dollar releases in one part of the country or another were more or less continuous during the 1940s and 1950s. However, in December 1954 there was a significant release of Philadelphia Mint Morgan dollars.)and those who were in the dollar business got quite excited. If you remember, back in 1954 such coins as 1925 Peace dollars were quite valuable. I think at one point they were bringing $10 apiece. Then the Treasury let go of many bags, and the date became common.
Apparently, every once in a while, as they emptied one vault in the Treasury, they would open another, perhaps one that had been sealed for many years. I think they found all of the CC coins in the Treasury Department in Washington in the early 1950s, and before then, not many people knew about them. At one time the 1885-CC was a great rarity, and I think Uncirculated coins were worth $50 apiece. Then all of a sudden, you know, maybe in '53 or '54, they opened up a vault with all the CC dollars in it. The public didn't know about it, but insiders like Charlie Dochkus found out.
Steve Ruddel was an active dealer in the Washington area, and he did a lot of business in dollars, too. He was well-financed and would go to the Treasury, buy a bunch of bags, look through them, and then give them back. Steve told me that he got a lot of good things this way, but that the Treasury didn't like the idea of his picking over bags and returning them. At one time, Phil Lampkin was helping Steve in his dollar deals.
I also want to mention that in looking through many bags of worn Morgan dollars, I found at least two or three 1895 Philadelphia coins. While, say, two of them were probably circulated Proofs, one had the appearance of having been Uncirculated at one time. At the time, these were worth $200 or $300 apiece.
1903-O and Other Dollars
With regard to the famous 1903-O dollars, I handled at least 15 or 20 mint bags. There must have been at least 50 bags of these that came out. The quantities of 1898-O and 1904-O, which were considered to be rarities before 1962, were much, much larger.
In the joint-sealed vault at the Philadelphia Mint that was opened in 1962 there were 10 million silver dollars, and I think they were all New Orleans Mint coins. I know I had bags of Uncirculated O-Mint coins of '79, '80, '81, '82, '83, '84, '85, '87, '89, '90, '91, '92, and '94 among the earlier dates. I only had one bag of 1894-O in my career, and I never had a bag of 1895-O. In fact, I never heard of a quantity of 1895-Os.
So far as 1886-O goes, I never had a bag of these, but I did have about 10 rolls of 1886-0s that were found in a bag. They were not completely Uncirculated however. They were what used to be called "super sliders," coins with lots of mint lustre but with some friction.
I never had a bag of 1896-O dollars, nor did I ever handle a bag of 1897-O. I had plenty of New Orleans dollars of all dates from 1898 through 1904. As I said, there were 10 million New Orleans dollars that came out of the Philadelphia Mint, and that's equal to 10,000 bags. Most of these contained Uncirculated coins, but there were many that had evidence of slight circulation. No one has ever been able to figure out why there would be slightly worn coins sewn up in mint bags. You have heard of these "slider" bags, especially for 1881-O and 1882-O. You didn't find them for 1885-O. John Ford thought they might have been used for a while in gambling casinos, then returned to the Treasury. This could have been a possibility, of course, for New Orleans had a lot of gambling going on at one time. Some of it was probably illegal.