On Tue, Jul 02, 2002 at 11:34:17PM -0400, R. A. Hettinga wrote:
At 7:31 PM -0500 on 7/2/02, Harmon Seaver wrote:
Wasn't the dollar backed by silver for quite awhile? There were definitely real silver dollars coined for quite awhile, and the dollar said something on it about silver certificate. Likewise many smaller coins had a high silver content -- this ended sometime during Vietnam, not sure the year. I've still got a bag of silver coins laying around somewhere.
There were silver certificates, yes, and silver coins, until the market value of the silver exceeded the value stated on the coin. Pennies have a lot of zinc in them now, for the same reason.
I'm not sure when the silver certificate notes stopped being issued, though it seems to me that FDR had something to do with that. I'm pretty sure they were being honored at least into the 1970's, and it seems to me that they'd just give you $20 worth of silver at market prices if you gave them a silver certificate, which wasn't much help unless you thought either the future price of silver was going up, or the dollar going down against silver sometime later one.
I did a quick search -- started issuing silver certificates in 1878, quit in 1957, but kept redeeming them for silver dollars until 1964, and for silver bullion until 1968. -- Harmon Seaver CyberShamanix http://www.cybershamanix.com