JULY 13
2023•Morgan & Peace Silver Dollars
2009•Guam First Day Coin Cover Announced
Morgan and Peace Silver Dollars Return After a One-Year Pause
On July 13, 2023, the United States Mint opened sales of the year's Uncirculated Morgan and Peace Silver Dollars, restoring a modern program that had begun with the celebrated 2021 centennial issues and then disappeared for all of 2022 because of a shortage of silver blanks. Both 2023 coins were struck at the Philadelphia Mint in .999 fine silver, carried a $76 issue price, and were limited to 275,000 pieces each. Their release transformed what had begun as a 100th-anniversary revival into an ongoing modern series linking two of the most famous silver-dollar designs in American history.
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Two Classic Dollars Return Together
Few pairings in United States coinage are as natural as the Morgan and Peace dollars.
The Morgan dollar represents the late nineteenth-century silver era: western mining, industrial expansion, monetary politics, and enormous government purchases of silver.
The Peace dollar represents what came next: the aftermath of World War I and a deliberate attempt to place a symbol of peace on America's largest circulating silver denomination.
In 1921, the two designs literally met in the same calendar year. Morgan dollars were struck again after a seventeen-year absence, then the new Peace dollar replaced them before the year ended.
A century later, Congress and the United States Mint brought both designs back.
July 13, 2023 marked the moment that revival became something more permanent.
The United States Mint announced in advance that the 2023 Uncirculated Morgan and Peace Silver Dollars would go on sale July 13 at noon Eastern Daylight Time.
Each coin was priced at $76.
Production was limited to 275,000 of each design, with a household order limit of 25 coins during the first 24 hours.
Both were struck at the Philadelphia Mint and carried an Uncirculated finish.
The Mint's 2023 Annual Report independently records July 13 as the release-for-sale date for both coins.
That makes the calendar date unusually secure: it is supported both by the contemporary sales announcement and the Mint's later official annual accounting.
Why 2023 Was More Than Another Anniversary
The modern Morgan and Peace story began in 2021.
Congress passed the 1921 Silver Dollar Coin Anniversary Act, directing the Treasury to honor the centennial of the final Morgan dollar coinage and the beginning of the Peace dollar.
The law's own findings described the transition as a pivotal moment in American history.
Congress associated the Morgan dollar with westward expansion and nineteenth-century industrial development. The Peace dollar represented America's emergence as an international power while recognizing the sacrifices of World War I and the peace that followed.
The 2021 coins therefore had an obvious centennial purpose.
The 2023 coins answered a different question: would the designs continue after the anniversary?
The answer was yes.
Collectors initially expected the revived program to continue into 2022.
It did not.
On March 14, 2022, the Mint announced that it would forgo production and sales of Morgan and Peace dollars for the year.
The reason was not lack of collector demand.
The global pandemic had disrupted the supply of silver blanks. The Mint said the shortage required difficult decisions about how available silver would be allocated among its products.
Deputy Director Ventris C. Gibson nevertheless promised that the historic Morgan and Peace program would return in 2023.
That promise gave July 13 additional significance.
After a full calendar year with no new Morgan or Peace dollar, the series was back.
To understand why collectors responded so strongly to the revival, it helps to understand the original Morgan dollar.
The coin was created after passage of the Bland-Allison Act of 1878, which required the Treasury to purchase large quantities of silver and convert it into silver dollars.
The denomination became inseparable from America's great nineteenth-century conflict over silver money.
George T. Morgan, an English-born engraver working at the United States Mint, created the design.
His Liberty portrait would become one of the most recognizable images in American numismatics.
George T. Morgan's Liberty
The Morgan obverse depicts Liberty in left-facing profile.
She wears a cap, agricultural elements, and a coronet inscribed LIBERTY. Thirteen stars represent the original states, while E PLURIBUS UNUM and the date surround the portrait.
Morgan sought a distinctly American model for Liberty rather than simply copying classical European sculpture.
Philadelphia teacher Anna Willess Williams famously sat for Morgan as he developed the portrait, though the final coin remained an idealized representation of Liberty rather than a literal portrait coin.
The reverse presents a heraldic eagle with outstretched wings, holding arrows and an olive branch within a wreath.
Original Morgan dollars were struck at more United States mints than almost any other famous silver-dollar series.
Philadelphia produced them without a mintmark.
Carson City coins carry CC, New Orleans coins O, San Francisco coins S, and the one-year 1921 Denver issue carries D.
Those mintmarks created an enormous field for collectors.
A common Philadelphia or San Francisco Morgan can be affordable, while key dates and rare Carson City issues can command enormous prices.
The combination of large size, silver content, mintmark variety, surviving Treasury hoards, and Old West associations helped turn the Morgan into a cornerstone of American coin collecting.
Regular Morgan production ended after 1904 as the government's silver supplies under earlier purchase laws were exhausted.
Then came the Pittman Act of 1918.
Hundreds of millions of existing silver dollars were melted, much of the bullion ultimately serving international wartime and postwar monetary needs. The law also required replacement silver purchases and recoining.
That obligation brought the Morgan dollar back in 1921.
Philadelphia, Denver, and San Francisco produced huge quantities.
But the revival was temporary.
By the end of the year, a new silver dollar was ready.
The Peace Dollar Replaces the Morgan
The Peace dollar was conceived as a coin symbolizing the end of World War I.
Anthony de Francisci, a young Italian-born American sculptor, won the design competition.
For Liberty, he used his wife Teresa as a model.
The resulting portrait is dramatically different from Morgan's nineteenth-century Liberty.
De Francisci's Liberty wears a radiant crown, her hair flowing backward as if caught by wind.
The reverse depicts an eagle at rest on a mountaintop, holding an olive branch above the word PEACE.
The symbolism is unusually direct.
The first Peace dollars were struck in late December 1921.
They were produced in high relief, giving the design a sculptural quality that collectors admire today.
But the high relief was difficult to strike efficiently.
Beginning in 1922, the Mint reduced the relief for mass production.
Peace dollars continued through 1928, then briefly returned in 1934 and 1935.
After 1935, the design disappeared from official production for decades.
The centennial legislation signed on January 5, 2021 created a remarkable opportunity.
Exactly 100 years after the Morgan's final original year and the Peace dollar's debut, the Mint could issue modern renditions of both.
The 2021 Morgan program went especially deep into history.
Different versions carried privy marks representing the former Carson City and New Orleans mints, while other coins were associated with Philadelphia, Denver, and San Francisco.
The 2021 Peace dollar recreated the famous first-year design in high relief.
Collector demand was intense.
The modern coins are not ordinary restrikes made from century-old dies.
The Mint describes them as renditions created through modern technology and historical United States Mint assets.
That distinction matters.
The goal is to preserve the recognizable character of Morgan's and de Francisci's artwork while manufacturing coins to contemporary standards.
The modern pieces are also made of .999 fine silver rather than the .900 fine alloy used for the original circulating dollars.
Each 2023 coin contains one troy ounce of pure silver.
The 2023 Morgan Silver Dollar
The 2023 Morgan preserves the essential features that made the nineteenth-century design famous.
Liberty appears in profile on the obverse, wearing her cap, flora, and LIBERTY coronet.
Thirteen stars, E PLURIBUS UNUM, and the year surround her.
The reverse depicts the eagle with outstretched wings, arrows and olive branch, enclosed by a wreath.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, IN GOD WE TRUST, and ONE DOLLAR complete the reverse.
The coin was struck at Philadelphia.
Unlike the historic Philadelphia Morgans, however, the modern issue exists primarily as a numismatic product rather than a circulating silver dollar intended for ordinary commerce.
The companion Peace dollar offers a completely different vision of Liberty.
Her youthful profile faces left beneath a radiant crown.
LIBERTY arcs above, with IN GOD WE TRUST and the date completing the obverse.
The reverse eagle is at rest rather than heraldically displayed.
It holds an olive branch while rays rise from below, with PEACE inscribed prominently at the base.
Placed beside the Morgan, the contrast is striking.
One design speaks in the artistic language of the late nineteenth century; the other looks forward from the aftermath of World War I.
The Mint markets the two designs together for good reason.
The original series form a historical handoff.
The Morgan ended in 1921. The Peace dollar began in 1921.
They represent consecutive chapters of the same silver-dollar story.
For collectors, buying them as a pair creates an immediate comparison of two different Liberties, two different eagles, two different eras, and two different artistic philosophies.
The modern program makes that comparison possible with coins produced to matching contemporary specifications.
The 2023 Uncirculated issues had a production limit of 275,000 coins apiece.
That is tiny compared with many original Morgan-dollar mintages but substantial for a modern premium numismatic product.
The Mint also restricted household orders to 25 of each coin during the first 24 hours.
Such limits reflect lessons learned from heavily demanded modern releases, particularly the frantic collector response to the 2021 anniversary coins.
The Mint also limited the share distributed through its Authorized Bulk Purchase Program.
The Subscription Program Changes the Buying Experience
Another important development was the use of subscriptions.
Collectors could enroll in advance for future Morgan and Peace products rather than relying entirely on a single high-pressure launch moment.
The system helped the Mint gauge demand and offered collectors a more predictable path to obtaining recurring issues.
That was another sign that Morgan and Peace dollars were no longer being treated merely as one-time centennial commemorations.
They were becoming a continuing collector program.
The July 13 Uncirculated release was only the beginning of the 2023 program.
On August 9, the Mint released Proof Morgan and Peace dollars.
These were the first Proof versions in the modern revival.
Later in the year came a two-coin Reverse Proof set, another first for the revived series.
Thus 2023 expanded the program from a simple return of the historic designs into multiple collector finishes.
Original Proof Morgan dollars exist, though many are rare and expensive.
Original Proof Peace dollars are a far more complicated subject, with extremely rare special strikes and disputed terminology surrounding certain pieces.
For modern collectors, the 2023 Proof issues offered a straightforward way to see both famous designs rendered with polished fields and frosted devices.
The Reverse Proof set then inverted that visual relationship.
Those products broadened the modern series far beyond what Congress had initially needed for the 2021 centennial.
The modern Morgan and Peace coins carry the denomination ONE DOLLAR and are legal-tender United States coins.
But no rational owner would normally spend one for a dollar.
Their silver content alone is worth far more than face value, and their Mint issue price reflects their status as collector products.
This separates the modern coins sharply from their ancestors.
Original Morgan and Peace dollars were created within a monetary system in which silver dollars could function as actual money, even if many sat in Treasury vaults for decades.
The 2023 versions are numismatic tributes from the moment they leave the Mint.
A Program Built on Nostalgia—and History
There is no denying nostalgia's role in the modern Morgan and Peace program.
Collectors already loved these designs.
The Mint did not need to introduce unfamiliar imagery or teach buyers why the coins mattered.
But the program works because the historical connection is unusually strong.
The Morgan and Peace dollars genuinely mark a transition in American history and coinage.
Congress explicitly recognized that relationship in the 2021 authorizing law.
The modern issues therefore revive not just two attractive designs, but a historical pair.
That is why the skipped year matters.
A centennial product issued in 2021 could easily have remained a one-year event.
When supply-chain problems eliminated 2022 production, the program might have lost momentum or quietly ended.
Instead, the Mint publicly promised a return.
July 13, 2023 fulfilled that promise.
The release demonstrated that the Morgan and Peace dollars had survived the interruption and would continue beyond their anniversary origins.
The July 13 release represents the second life of two coins that had already experienced multiple lives.
The Morgan dollar was born in 1878, disappeared after 1904, returned in 1921, and came back again a century later.
The Peace dollar replaced it in 1921, ended in 1935, and likewise returned in 2021.
Then both vanished again in 2022—not because collectors had lost interest, but because the Mint could not obtain enough silver blanks.
On July 13, 2023, both designs returned together.
The Philadelphia Mint's .999 fine silver Uncirculated coins, limited to 275,000 of each design, reopened the modern series. Proof and Reverse Proof versions soon followed.
What had begun as a centennial celebration was becoming a continuing chapter in American numismatics.
For two designs separated by more than a century from their origins, July 13 proved that their stories were still being written.
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