Draped Bust dollar
Dated 1796 ・ silver ・ 18th century ・ United States Mint, Philadelphia
Liberty with drapery at the breast — a silver dollar of the Draped Bust type, dated 1796. The Coinage Act had set bimetallism at a gold-to-silver ratio of fifteen to one, but the ratio was out of line with the market, and gold, undervalued, flowed out of the country: Gresham played again. The young Mint's output was slight, the reckoning of the market was still carried by the Spanish dollar, and the question of federal paper money, on which the Constitution was silent, was still left open. The struggle over bimetallism went on for the hundred years that followed. This silver coin stands at the entrance of that long story.