Silver dollars ready to run

The silver dollar market peaked in 1989. Is it time for a revival?

You might say that the silver dollar market has never gone away. You would be right. It has long been a respected collector niche.

However, it has been a generation since the large silver coin, nicknamed the cartwheel as a consequence of its size, dominated the market.

Classic rarities, registry sets, modern commemoratives and other coins in MS-70 grade and bullion have been crowding the silver dollar out of the limelight for many years.

But the time might be arriving when the silver dollar will fight back. A recent column on grading by F. Michael Fazzari that used the silver dollar as an example has generated quite a bit of reader response in Numismatic News.

Another commentary by Harry Miller about a scam with a fake 1889-CC silver dollar also generated feedback.

Feedback alone does not make a trend, but it accompanies one.

Miller has also reported in recent weeks just how well silver dollars did in 2013 and how they have opened 2014 on the strong side.

In is good to see this. The silver dollar made the decade of the 1980s what it was. It would be fun to repeat the experience.

However, if I were a bullion investor, I would watch the renewed rise of the silver dollar with some concern. It could be a signal, as it was in the 1980s, that gold and silver bullion are going to go to sleep for a while.

Buzz blogger Dave Harper is winner of the 2013 Numismatic Literary Guild Award for Best Blog and is editor of the weekly newspaper "Numismatic News."