Item of the Week: Quality 1923-S Peace dollar difficult to find
Common in circulated grades but elusive in gem condition, the 1923-S Peace dollar remains one of the series’ most notable condition rarities.
Probably the most frequently encountered condition rarities are branch mint coins. It is not the case today, but for many decades, branch mints were the poor stepchild when it came to coin production. Philadelphia was the main facility, while the branch mint was “out of sight and out of mind.”
It was logical to a degree, as the bulk of the population was in the industrial Northeast. People were welcome to explore the gold fields in Georgia and North Carolina, or inhabit New Orleans, or pack up their families to seek their fortune in California. But if they did so, officials and workers in Philadelphia did not feel pressured to keep them supplied with coins for commerce. That was the role of the branch mint.
It had started in Dahlonega, Ga., and Charlotte, N.C. The facilities there were created to serve the gold mining region, but no one lost sleep if the two did not produce many coins, and their quality was marginal. As a result, there were not many first-class gold coins to be carefully saved and kept in their original condition. Consequently, Charlotte and Dahlonega gold is generally in the condition rarity group of American coins. If you can find them at all, they are unlikely to be nice or well struck.
Other branch mints had their periods as well. A number of Carson City issues are condition rarities, and New Orleans had coins that seem not to have survived in top grades for various reasons.
Perhaps it was the sheer wealth of gold in California that suggested the San Francisco facility would be busy for a long time. What we know for certain is that some very nice coins emerged from San Francisco over the years. The 1923- S Peace dollar was not among those, however.
It is hard to know exactly what went wrong with the 1923-S Peace dollar. It was the second full year of Peace dollar production – a story in itself, as the Pittman Act saw the wartime destruction of hundreds of millions of silver dollars that had to be replaced. The replacement process began in 1921 with the minting of 1921 Morgan and then Peace dollars. In 1922, the Peace dollar was the only silver dollar to be produced as the forced production rolled on.
We do know the required heavy production of silver dollars reduced the mintage of other coins. Mintages in the early 1920s, except for Peace dollars, are frequently lower than usual, if there were any at all. There was no Lincoln cent production at Philadelphia or Denver in 1922, and none at Denver in 1923. There are no 1922 dimes from any facility and none from Denver in 1923.
The 1923-S Peace dollar emerged from the period with a mintage of more than 19 million pieces – the largest branch mint Peace dollar production in history. The 1923-S was and is common in circulated condition. It’s not special in MS-60, but in MS-63 and up, it brings premium prices. In MS-64, it is $425 – well above common prices, but not high for Peace dollars.
In MS-65, the 1923-S is $3,000 – putting it in the Peace dollar top ten. What makes the price stand out is that 1923 was one of the years of heavy production, and the Philadelphia 1923 is just $210, and the Denver is $1,250. With the large mintage for a branch mint Peace dollar, it seems clear that perhaps the quality suffered. So the 1923-S is available, but not often in MS-65 – a classic Peace dollar condition rarity.
Images courtesy Heritage Auctions.
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