The Peace dollar is a United States dollar coin minted for circulation from 1921 to 1928 and 1934 to 1935, and beginning again for collectors in 2021. Designed by Anthony de Francisci, the coin was the result of a competition to find designs emblematic of peace. Its obverse represents the head and neck of the Goddess of Liberty in profile, and the reverse depicts a bald eagle at rest clutching an olive branch, with the legend "Peace". It was the last United States dollar coin to be struck for circulation in silver.
With the passage of the Pittman Act in 1918, the United States Mint was required to strike millions of silver dollars, and began to do so in 1921, using the Morgan dollar design. Numismatists began to lobby the Mint to issue a coin that memorialized the peace following World War I; although they failed to get Congress to pass a bill requiring the redesign, they were able to persuade government officials to take action. The Peace dollar was approved by Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon in December 1921, completing the redesign of United States coinage that had begun in 1907.
The public believed the announced design, which included a broken sword, was illustrative of defeat, and the Mint hastily acted to remove the sword. The Peace dollar was first struck on December 28, 1921; just over a million were coined bearing a 1921 date. When the Pittman Act requirements were met in 1928, the mint ceased production of the coins, but more were struck during 1934 and 1935 as a result of further legislation. In 1965, amid much controversy, the Denver mint struck over 316,000 Peace dollars dated 1964, but these were never issued, and all are believed to have been melted.
In 2021, the U.S. Mint produced a special 2021 issue Peace Dollar to celebrate the design’s 100th anniversary, with minting of the coins to continue from 2023 onwards.
Background and preparations
Statutory history
The Bland–Allison Act, passed by Congress on February 28, 1878, required the Treasury to purchase a minimum of $2 million in domestically mined silver per month and coin it into silver dollars. The Mint used a new design by engraver George T. Morgan, and struck what became known as the Morgan dollar. Many of the pieces quickly vanished into bank vaults for use as backing for paper currency redeemable in silver coin, known as silver certificates. In 1890, the purchases required under the Bland–Allison Act were greatly increased under the terms of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act. Although the Sherman Act was repealed in 1893, it was not until 1904 that the government struck the last of the purchased silver into dollars. Once it did, production of the coin ceased.
During World War I, the German government hoped to destabilize British rule over India by spreading rumors that the British were unable to redeem for silver all of the paper currency they had printed. These rumors, and hoarding of silver, caused the price of silver to rise and risked damaging the British war effort. The British turned to their war ally, the United States, asking to purchase silver to increase the supply and lower the price. In response, Congress passed the Pittman Act of April 23, 1918. This statute gave the United States authority to sell metal to the British government from up to 350,000,000 silver dollars at $1 per ounce of silver plus the value of the copper in the coins, and handling and transportation fees. Only 270,232,722 coins were melted for sale to the British, but this represented 47% of all Morgan dollars struck to that point. The Treasury was required by the terms of the Act to strike new silver dollars to replace the coins that were melted, and to strike them from silver purchased from American mining companies.
Idea and attempted legislation
It is uncertain who originated the idea for a US coin to commemorate the peace following World War I; the genesis is usually traced to an article by Frank Duffield published in the November 1918 issue of The Numismatist. Duffield suggested that a victory coin should be "issued in such quantities it will never become rare". In August 1920, a paper by numismatist Farran Zerbe was read to that year's American Numismatic Association (ANA) convention in Chicago. In the paper, entitled Commemorate the Peace with a Coin for Circulation, Zerbe called for the issuance of a coin to celebrate peace, stating,