1860 Liberty Seated Dollar : A Collector’s Guide

By Charles Morgan and Hubert Walker for CoinWeek Notes …..
 

As the general election campaign of 1860 unfolded, it became clear that the fractured Democratic Party would be unable to select a nationally competitive candidate. Instead, the party splintered. The Northern faction nominated Illinois Senator Stephen A. Douglas, while Southern Democrats threw their support behind Vice President John C. Breckenridge of Kentucky. Breckenridge, the youngest VP ever to serve in the position, was well-regarded in Washington but had an icy relationship with President Buchanan. The upstart Republican Party, competing in only its second presidential election, nominated one-term Illinois Congressman Abraham Lincoln. A fourth faction, the ad hoc Constitutional Party, was made up of former Whigs from the South who refused to align themselves with the Northern abolitionists in the Republican Party. They nominated Tennessee Senator John Bell.

As the campaign played out, the conflict between pro-slavery Southern states and the anti-slavery North cast a pall on the quadrennial proceedings. Decades of failure to address the fundamental immorality and brutality of slavery wrought the repellent Supreme Court decision in Dred Scott vs. Sandford (1856), led to a bloody precursor civil war in Kansas, and all but guaranteed that wider bloodshed was inevitable.

Lincoln did not receive a single vote from nine seceding states, and carried just 1% of the vote in Virginia. But his share of the vote in the more heavily populated North secured his Electoral College victory.

This inflamed the passions of Southern politicians and their slaveholding backers, even some in the Buchanan Administration like Secretary of War John B. Floyd and Treasury Secretary Howell Cobb. Floyd actively undermined what he saw as the Federal Government’s ability to preserve the Union by diverting government bonds, arms, and supplies from the North to the South before resigning on December 29, 1860.

Cobb, a Georgia Democrat and former Speaker of the House, had spent the first few years of his tenure at the Treasury Department dealing with the Panic of 1857, considered by most to be the first global economic crisis. He resigned on December 8, writing to Buchanan:

The evil has now passed beyond control, and must be met by each and all of us under our responsibility to God and our country. If. as I believe, history will have, to record yours as the last administration of our present Union, it will also place it side by side with the purest and ablest of those that preceded it.

Secretary Cobb became one of the founders of the Confederacy, standing for election as the CSA’s first president. During the war, he took up arms against the United States. Four years later, Union General William Tecumseh Sherman would dine in the slave quarters at Cobb’s plantation and then order his soldiers to burn everything to the ground.

As for the United States Mint, it operated three branches in Southern territory in 1860. The New Orleans Mint was built to convert Mexican coinage into silver and gold coins of the federal standard. The Charlotte and Dahlonega mints were established to convert locally sourced gold bullion into legal coin. All three fell into Confederate hands in 1861.

The political events of 1860 played out like a slow-motion tragedy. The short-term euphoria felt in Southern society following secession and the rout of Union forces at the July 21, 1861, Battle of Bull Run quickly subsided as the destructive consequences of the war came into focus.

Dollar Coin Production in 1860

A large influx of silver began to arrive in Philadelphia and New Orleans following the June 1859 discovery of the Comstock Lode. The New Orleans Mint, being 500 miles closer, received the greater share. The journey east was expensive and dangerous, whether it be over land or sea, and the Congress of a divided United States would seek to remedy this situation in 1863 with the establishment of the Carson City Mint in Nevada.

Dollar coins retained their pre-1853 weight standard and cost depositors a small premium over face value to produce. These coins enjoyed only intermittent domestic circulation, struck on demand for trade in Asia (particularly China). The importance of American silver export coins was seen with the June 13, 1860, visit to the Philadelphia Mint of a Japanese delegation of 80 samurai.

Dollar production took place from March through December. The Mint reported 18 deliveries of circulation-quality coins and one delivery of Proofs.

The last three emissions of the year are historically interesting. Five thousand dollar coins were struck on November 8, two days after Abraham Lincoln won the presidency. Two days later, the General Assembly of South Carolina called for a “Convention of the People” to consider secession from the Union. On December 10 (the same day Cobb resigned), two pairs of 1861-D dollar dies were shipped to the Dahlonega Mint in Georgia in anticipation of the next year’s coinage. The dies arrived on January 7, 1861.

By the end of December 1860, South Carolina had seceded from the Union, and Louisiana state officials visited the New Orleans Mint and informed staff that the facility was now under state control.

In terms of Liberty Seated Dollars, the New Orleans Mint outproduced the Philadelphia Mint 515,000 to 217,600. Despite this 2.37:1 ratio, 1860-O dollars survive in Mint State at a rate of about 10:1 compared to Philadelphia issues.

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1860 Liberty Seated Dollar Market Data and Noteworthy Specimens

Top Population: PCGS MS66+ (2, 9/2024), NGC MS67 (1, 9/2024), and CAC MS66 (1:0 stickered:graded, 9/2024).

• NGC MS67 #1727946-040: Possibly (per Heritage) “The Fairfield Collection,” October 6-8, 1977, Lot 1093; Bowers and Ruddy, Heritage Auctions, July 27, 2003, Lot 8251 – $69,000. Frosty and brilliant.

• PCGS MS66+ #36468184: As PCGS MS65 CAC #3144089. “The Dr. Young Collection,” Heritage Auctions, March 4, 2016, Lot 4962 – $50,525. Old green holder. As PCGS MS66+ #36468184. Heritage Auctions, May 3, 2023, Lot 3131 – $156,000. Upgraded by 1.5 points. OC-5. Dark spot to the right of Liberty’s left wrist. Horizontal tick to the left of star 12. Two hits on the right forearm. Large deep rim hit below TA of STATES. Contact marks under the eagle’s right wing.

• NGC MS65 #302192-007: Heritage Auctions, August 14, 2024, Lot 4217 – $18,600. OC-6. Darkly toned. Dark spot nearly touching star 12. Toning spot on Liberty’s right arm at elbow.
• NGC MS65 #916126-015: As NGC MS65 #916126-015.  Heritage Auctions, January 8, 2009, Lot 3956 – $46,000; Heritage Auctions, August 24, 2022, Lot 3956 – $25,200. Described as OC-2. As NGC MS65 #6329480-005. Heritage Auctions, August 15, 2023, Lot 3112 – $22,800. Recertified. Green RARCOA insert. Here described as OC-7. Brilliant. Diagonal cut to the right of stars 3 and 4. Diagonal cut to the left of star 11. On the reverse, small tick below second A of AMERICA.
• NGC MS65: American Numismatic Rarities, August 11, 2006, Lot 730 – $23,575. Rose toning around the upper obverse periphery.
• NGC MS65: Heritage Auctions, June 2, 2006, Lot 2071 – $20,700. Brown and gold toning throughout. Rim hit on torso.
• NGC MS65: “The Oliver Jung Collection,” American Numismatic Rarities, July 23, 2004, Lot 75 – $23,000.
• PCGS MS64+ CAC #40750998: Heritage Auctions, September 14, 2023, Lot 3037 – $9,300. OC-1. Darkly toned.
• PCGS MS64+ CAC #40750998: Bill Nagle, March 2007; Eugene H. Gardner; “The Eugene H. Gardner Collection, Part II,” Heritage Auctions, October 2014, Lot 98595; unknown intermediaries; “The Osprey Collection, December 2021; Narva River & Lake Balaton Collection, March 2022; Stack’s Bowers, June 14, 2022, Lot 1374 – $13,800. OC-1. Antique grey-olive toning.

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Design

Obverse:

The obverse features Liberty in classical flowing robes seated on a rock, her head turned to the right (viewer’s left). Liberty’s left arm is bent, her raised hand holding a Liberty pole with a cap. The right arm is extended downward at her side, with the hand balancing a Union shield with the word LIBERTY displayed in a curving banner. Thirteen six-pointed stars surround the seated figure inside a denticulated rim: seven on the left side, one between Liberty’s head and the cap, and the remaining five along the right. The date 1860 is centered at the bottom between the base of the rock and the rim.

Reverse:

On the reverse, an eagle is prominently displayed inside a denticulated rim. The eagle’s wings are partly spread but folded downward at the joint as if the majestic bird had just landed or was preparing to fly away. An olive branch is in the dexter claw (viewer’s left); the sinister claw clutches three arrows. The legend UNITED STATES OF AMERICA encircles the top two-thirds of the coin inside the rim, with the denomination ONE DOL. centered at the bottom. Struck at the Philadelphia Mint, these coins bear no mintmark.

Edge:

The edge of the 1860 Liberty Seated Dollar is reeded.

Coin Specifications

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References

Julian, R.W. “The Silver Dollar, 1853-1873”, Numismatic Scrapbook Magazine. August 1964. 2124-2128. Data compiled and analyzed from the National Archives.
 

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