The Seated Liberty dollar was a dollar coin designed by Mint Chief Engraver Christian Gobrecht and struck by the United States Mint from 1840 to 1873. The coin's reverse features a heraldic eagle first seen on coins in 1807, based on a design by late Mint Chief Engraver John Reich; the coin's obverse is based on the Gobrecht dollar. "In God We Trust" was added to the dollar in 1866 following its introduction to other US coins earlier in the decade. In the final years of the series, there was more silver produced in the US, and mintages increased. These were the last dollar coins before the Coinage Act of 1873 temporarily ended their production for American commerce and authorized the trade dollar for use in foreign commerce. Representatives of silver interests were unhappy when the metal's price dropped again in the mid-1870s; they advocated the resumption of the free coinage of silver into legal tender. After passage of the Bland-Allison Act in 1878, silver dollar production resumed with the Morgan dollar. (Full article...)
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