The 1921 Morgans—from all three U.S. mints—have a subtle but unmistakably different look compared to the Morgans of 1878-1904. The portrait is seemingly of a different dimension, but perhaps more noticeable is their lower relief. In the hand, the portrait on 1921 Morgans often seems quite flat.
But the 1921 coins come by their distinctive look honestly. Production of the Morgan had stopped in 1904 because the coin was not used in anything like the enormous quantities produced. By 1910 it seemed clear that no additional silver dollars would be required for many years, if ever, so the authorities ordered the Morgan’s coining tools destroyed.
But WWI intervened. The British needed silver for India, and to supply it a very large number of American silver dollars—some 270 million—were melted under the Pittman Act of 1918. (About 11 million of the total melted were used by the U.S. for the production of subsidiary coins.)
The legislation required that the melted dollars be replaced, and after the war that was done. The new Peace dollar was not ready soon enough, however, so to get started, the mint had to create completely new coining tools for the 1921 Morgan dollars—hence their different appearance from the coins of 1878-1904.
The Morgans of 1921 are the commonest of the series by far, with some 86,730,000 having been struck, with 20,345,000 of them being Denver-mint coins like this one. Not coincidentally, India’s George V silver rupees of 1918 and 1919 are themselves extremely common coins.
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