SILVER $69.11GOLD $4,604GOLD/SILVER 66.6PLATINUM $1,887PALLADIUM $1,371COPPER $6.47BTC $77,243SNAPSHOT○

Coins/ Dollars / Early Dollars/ 1803

FINENESS .8924ASW 0.77344 OZT26.96 G

Overview History First Mint Die Marriages Key Dates 1804 Dollar Collecting Grading Checklist References

Issue RecordOBTAINABLEPhiladelphia89.24% Silver1 of 15 issues

1803 Draped Bust, Heraldic Eagle Dollar

An obtainable date carrying the series' most interesting piece of arithmetic. The Mint recorded 66,064; the reference literature carries 85,634; the difference is 19,570, exactly the 1804 delivery. The 1804 coinage was quietly reassigned to the 1803 date at some point in the twentieth century, and the fossil is still sitting in every price guide.

1803 early dollars — obverse and reverse

The numbers, and what kind of numbers they are

Every figure carries its evidence class. Press a class to open the record behind it — what it rests on, by what method, and what the series says you should not conclude from it.

RECORDED DELIVERY

66,064

The Mint recorded what the Chief Coiner DELIVERED in a calendar year, not what it struck bearing a date. Where the registry combines years, the split is a reconstruction and the class says so.

DATED ATTRIBUTION

85,634

What the trade assigns to coins bearing this date. A modern allocation by an outside authority, not a federal record.

ESTIMATED SURVIVORS

—

No STRUCTURED census exists for this series yet — not because none has been published, but because the published estimates live in the key-date prose and were never carried as figures with their own attribution and date. Retyping them here would be authoring data from downstream text, so the slot stays empty until the research leg structures them.

What the record asserts

The figures above are measurements. This is the proposition they support, in the Archive's own claim vocabulary — a different scale from the figure classes, because a claim can be probable where the number behind it is exact.

CLAIMThe 1803 silver dollar mintage figure of 85,634 used in the modern trade literature exceeds the Mint's own recorded 1803 delivery of 66,064 by exactly 19,570, the Mint's recorded 1804 delivery.

STATUSCONFIRMED — the Archive's assessment of the proposition, not of the arithmetic.

CLAIM IDearly-dollars-1803-trade-mintage-contains-1804-delivery

Specifications

SpecificationValue

DENOMINATIONDollar

DESIGNERRobert Scot

COMPOSITION89.24% silver, 10.76% copper — 371¼ grains of pure silver in 416 grains of standard silver

WEIGHT26.96 g

SILVER CONTENT0.77344 ozt

DIAMETERNot fixed by statute. The Act of April 2, 1792 specifies the dollar's weight and fineness and says nothing about its diameter; surviving coins run to roughly 39–40 mm.

EDGELettered — HUNDRED CENTS ONE DOLLAR OR UNIT

MINTPhiladelphia only — the first and, until 1838, the sole United States mint

MINT MARKNone. No branch mint existed, so no early dollar carries a mint mark.

DIE MARRIAGESat least 2 — Small 3 and Large 3

From the book

Chapters that cite a document this coin's figures rest on. The same source id, reached from the other direction.

CHAPTER ONEThe First Silver
A shop with horses, a statute about to expire, and 1,758 coins on an October afternoon — where every early dollar comes from.CHAPTER TWOThe Carousel
Accepted by count, exported by the crate: the banker's habit that consumed ninety-seven percent of the series.CHAPTER FOURTwelve Marriages
A teaching set, ranked by lesson rather than price: attribute these twelve and you can attribute the series.CHAPTER FIVEThe Ledger and the Date
The Mint counted deliveries, never dates — and confusing the two columns manufactured the most famous coin in America.

The primary record

Every document behind the figures above. Where OunceDesk holds a copy, the row opens it.

Mint Report 1803 (American State Papers, Finance)
Held in the Archive · behind recorded delivery

PCGS CoinFacts
External authority — not held by OunceDesk · behind dated attribution

OunceDeskPrecious Metals IntelligenceIndependent research, market data, tools and coin intelligence for people who take hard assets seriously.

Hard Money. Hard Numbers. · Not investment advice. Some links pay us a commission — disclosures. Affiliate economics never determine research conclusions or rankings. © 2026 OunceDesk. Every figure classed OBSERVED / DERIVED / ESTIMATED / SPECULATIVE.