1895 Morgan Silver Dollar

According to US Mint records, there were 12,000 regular business strikes made of the 1895 Morgan Silver Dollar. If this is true, no one knows what happened to them, because to this day, not one single example is known to exist.

Numismatic scholars have long sought conclusive evidence of their fate, but the mystery remains. One line of thought is that the Mint retained all of them until 1918, when 270 million silver dollars were melted under the provisions of the Pittman Act, including the entire mintage of the 1895 business strike dollars.

Some have theorized that the 12,000 number indicated on the Mint report were actually 1894 dollars delivered during 1895.

Whatever the truth might be, the fact is that the only opportunity for a collector to acquire an 1895 Morgan Dollar lies with the Proof population.

Of the 880 Proofs struck, an estimated 600-700 have survived. For many thousands (or is it millions?) of Morgan Dollar collectors, the 1895 stands as a major hurdle in completing a full set.

If the day should ever come when a group of 1895 business strikes are found in a long ago forgotten vault, you can still bet the 1895 Morgan Dollar proof edition will maintain its broad appeal.