1901 Morgan Dollars 1878-1921 F15

History

The New Orleans Mint delivered silver dollars in every month of 1901, opening with 1,500,000 pieces in January and closing with another 1,500,000 in December. The year's total gave the facility the largest silver dollar mintage it ever produced. Steady monthly output of that size left the date plentiful at the time of striking, though the survival picture was reshaped decades later by government melting and by long-delayed releases from Treasury vaults.

Details

George T. Morgan designed both sides of the coin, and the New Orleans Mint identified its work with an O mintmark. Business strikes totaled 13,320,000, a figure matched exactly by the sum of the twelve monthly delivery reports. Research by R. W. Julian records 140 reverse dies prepared for the issue; the number of obverse dies is not known.

Features

The obverse carries a left-facing Liberty head in a Phrygian cap, cotton and wheat worked into her headband, with E PLURIBUS UNUM around the periphery, thirteen stars, and the date below. On the reverse an eagle with spread wings holds arrows and an olive branch, IN GOD WE TRUST appears above in Gothic lettering, and the O mintmark sits below the wreath, above the D and O of ONE DOLLAR. Striking quality varies widely and is often weak, so fully struck examples bring premiums that the mintage figure alone would not suggest. Prooflike pieces exist in reasonable numbers but are frequently unattractive.

Notable facts

• Deep mirror prooflike 1901-O dollars are roughly six to seven times scarcer than ordinary prooflike examples.
• Probably millions of 1901-O dollars were destroyed under the Pittman Act of 1918 and in later private melting.
• Bags of Mint State 1901-O dollars came out of Treasury storage over many years, notably in 1953 and in very large quantity between 1962 and 1964.
• The Philadelphia Mint struck 6,962,000 dollars in 1901, of which an estimated 5,000,000 were melted under the Pittman Act.
• The 1901 doubled die reverse known as the Shifted Eagle, VAM-3, is a Philadelphia variety and does not occur on New Orleans coins.