The 1922 Liberty Dollar: Designed to Honor Peace After World War I

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History Of The Liberty Dollar

Many political factors led to the release of the 1922 Liberty Dollar, also known as the Peace Dollar.

The first world war had just ended. As a way to celebrate the great victory, two coin experts suggested that the U.S. produce a new coin to commemorate the newly attained peace after years of brutal conflict.

Thus, the idea of a peace dollar was introduced and many plans were put into action for creating the coin. First, a design had to be conceived and picked.

Letters were personally sent to people requesting them to submit designs for the Liberty Dollar. Anthony de Francisci won the contest and his design would later spark controversy surrounding the meanings of the images on the Peace Dollar.

Features of The Peace Dollar

Several characteristics must be on the design of the Liberty dollar. The words "In God We Trust", "Liberty", "E Pluribus Unum", and "The United States of America" all had to appear somewhere on the Liberty dollar.

The Statue of Liberty, an eagle, and the denomination were also required to be on it.

Before the coin was officially released, the United States Mint described the coin in a press release. The face of the Statue of Liberty was on the heads’ side whereas the reverse side showed an eagle on a broken sword, which offended many.

A broken sword didn't represent peace, which was the purpose of the coin, but defeat.

A very prominent newspaper, the New York Herald, campaigned against the Liberty dollar.

That and the many letters received by the Mint, which agreed with the newspaper, resulted in de Francisci being convinced to take the sword off the design.

However, because it was so late in the production process, the sword had to be manually separated from the coin. Additional detail in the form of a mountain had to cover the space originally taken up by the sword.

Value Today

The 1922 Liberty dollar is worth considerably more than one dollar today. Of course, the better condition your coin is in, the more valuable it is.

A silver dollar in good condition could be worth around $21.47. The price gets higher as the state of the coin is judged to be better than "good".

If you have an uncirculated 1922 Liberty dollar, for example, you can expect to sell it to coin collectors for a price somewhere in the range of $34.72.

Value is added to the coin if it is uncirculated and has a mintmark on the reverse side from one of the three mints that made silver dollars in 1922. This includes those which featured a “D” or “S” on the coin.

The primary mint which produced the 1922 Liberty dollar was located in Philadelphia. It did not leave a mintmark, making those specific coins all the more valuable; prices can reach $41.64 in those cases.

There are rare cases where extra care was put into preserving the condition of the Liberty dollar and the value increased significantly. In one David Lawrence auction, a 1922-D silver dollar was bought by a coin collector for $690.

1922 Liberty Dollar

Image Source Flickr user frankieleon

Although the coin is 90 percent silver, you will most likely make more of a profit by selling it to a coin collector. The average silver melt value is only $13.99, while you can profit nearly double that by having a professional who specializes in coins purchase it.

The other 10 percent of the coin is copper, which makes it weigh a total of 26.73 grams.

Whatever you decide to do with your special coin, we can assure you that any deal you make will almost definitely get you more than the one dollar it was worth back in 1922.

Why Collectors Want This Coin

Several million Liberty dollars were produced by the U.S. mint, and most were normal relief quality.

The previous year, all coins were of high-relief quality. While this made the coins look much nicer, it wasn’t practical because of the toll that producing high-quality relief coins took on the dies used.

Therefore, only a few thousand 1922 silver dollars were made that were high-relief. Today, only a few dozen are thought to exist.

Those exceedingly rare Liberty dollars are extremely valuable, and any coin collector would love to add a 1922 Peace dollar to their collection.

How about you? If you would have had, or currently have this coin, would you keep it and add an exceptional piece to your collection? Or would you rather reap the substantial benefits of selling the 1922 Liberty dollar?

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