When the Dollar is no Longer the World’s Reserve Currency

Tied for Highest Graded – 1884 Seated Liberty Dime PCGS MS68

Unlike the quarters and halves, a large number of dimes were struck in 1884. In fact, more than 3.3 million pieces were produced. Despite the large mintage, surprisingly few coins were set aside in the ultimate grades. This particular example offers highly attractive ocean-blue peripheries with golden-brown and red fields. While typical mint state survivors certainly aren’t rare, at the MS68 level this date is a formidable conditional rarity,

The PCGS population is only 3 with none graded higher.

Listed at $17,500 in the PCGS price guide

Offered at $11,800

SECRETARY STATEMENTS & REMARKS

Remarks by Secretary of the Treasury Janet L. Yellen at the Open Session of the meeting of the Financial Stability Oversight Council

Editorial: The Financial Stability Oversight Council was Established in 2010 under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, the Financial Stability Oversight Council provides comprehensive monitoring of the stability of our nation’s financial system.

This council is charged by statute with identifying risks to the financial stability of the United States; promoting market discipline; and responding to emerging threats to the stability of the U.S. financial system.

This council may be monitoring and identifying but they aren’t doing anything to reduce excessive government spending which has resulted in a $2.5T annual U.S. budget deficit, a 40 year high inflation rate, and a U.S. National Debt approaching $34T? This is just more of the same nonsensical approach of creating more layers of bureaucracy expense and resolving nothing.

November 3, 2023

As Prepared for Delivery

Our first agenda item is to discuss and vote on the Financial Stability Oversight Council’s analytic framework for financial stability risk identification, assessment, and response, and on the Council’s interpretive guidance on nonbank financial company designations. Before we turn to the presentation, I’d like to explain why I believe it is so important for the Council to achieve greater public transparency and analytic rigor and how these two documents will help the Council do so. 

Financial stability is a public good. The U.S. financial system enables people to make payments, build businesses, save, and manage risks. To fill our needs, it has evolved to be complex, diverse, and interconnected. We rely on it every day, and it has succeeded in supporting American families and businesses, enabling wealth creation and economic growth over generations. But, when it falters, we can experience financial crises that can devastate households and businesses for years afterwards.  

This is where the Council, or FSOC, comes in. Congress created FSOC after the global financial crisis to identify and respond to risks to financial stability. To maintain the strength of the financial sector, we need a nimble but robust structure to monitor and address the build-up of risks that could threaten the system. In the lead-up to the global financial crisis, inadequate oversight led to reckless risk-taking. When large, interconnected financial companies failed in 2007 and 2008, stress spread through the financial system and then to the real economy. The reforms implemented after that crisis substantially strengthened the financial system. And the banking system as a whole remains strong. But recent stresses in some financial sectors arising from the onset of the pandemic and the sudden failures of some regional banks underscore the continuing need to remain vigilant to threats to ensure the resilience of the financial system and our economic strength.  

This is the purpose of the Council, and our two votes today go to the heart of FSOC fulfilling its critical mission. 

Our first vote will be on approving the Council’s analytic framework for financial stability risks. This framework will help the public better understand how the Council goes about its work and how it draws on its various statutory tools to respond to risks. For the first time, it provides a clear explanation of how the Council monitors, evaluates, and responds to potential risks to financial stability, regardless of whether they come from activities, individual firms, or other sources. Under the framework, the Council’s response to a particular risk to financial stability will depend on the nature of the risk. Often, risks emanate from widely conducted activities and can be effectively addressed through action by an existing regulator or interagency coordination. Other times, risks are instead concentrated in one or more specific nonbank financial companies. 

This brings me to the Council’s guidance on nonbank financial company designations. Among the tools Congress gave the Council is the authority to designate a nonbank financial company for Federal Reserve supervision and prudential standards if the company’s distress or activities could pose a threat to financial stability. The guidance we are voting on today will help ensure that the Council is able to use this authority as needed. It describes in detail the procedural steps for the Council’s review of nonbank financial companies for potential designation. These involve rigorous analysis and transparency. The guidance maintains strong procedural protections for companies under review, including significant Council engagement and communication, and provides them with opportunities to be heard. The guidance also affirms that the Council will engage extensively with companies’ primary financial regulators. The guidance also eliminates several prerequisites to designation in place under the current guidance that were not contemplated by the Dodd-Frank Act and that are based on a flawed view of how financial risks develop and spread. And, again, designation is only one of the Council’s tools and is not being prioritized over other approaches to addressing financial stability risks. 

In voting to adopt the analytic framework and guidance, we will increase the transparency of the Council’s work and establish a durable process for the Council’s use of its designation authority, strengthening the Council’s ability to promote a resilient financial system that supports all Americans.  

With that, let me turn to Sandra Lee, Treasury’s Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Council, for the presentation.

Only 2 Graded Higher – 1854 Arrows Seated Liberty Quarter NGC PR65

All 1854 Seated Liberty quarters show arrows at the date to signify a weight change in the denomination that was instituted the year before. The 1853-dated quarters also displayed a glory of rays on the reverse, but that feature was eliminated in 1854 because of striking problems and die breakage. The Arrows design was continued in 1855, then eliminated, creating an extremely popular two-year subtype.

Accounts of the precise rarity of the 1854 Arrows quarter proof issue vary to a certain extent, but all agree that it is very rare at a minimum, with no more than 12 to 15 known (according to David Akers, writing for the Pittman catalog in 1998) or around 10 (according to Walter Breen). PCGS CoinFacts estimates 10 to 15 pieces known.

The NGC population is only 2 with 2 graded higher.

Listed at $21,600 in the CDN CPG and $25,000 in the NGC price guide.

Offered at $21,900

1908 Indian Half Eagle NGC MS66

Collectors will find the 1908 to be among the most plentiful Indian half eagles in Gem and better condition, even while some other dates such as the 1909-D are more available overall. The higher Gem population of the 1908 is due to the first-year-of-issue status of this date, which historically resulted in more widespread preservation of examples due to the novelty of the new design. Even so, the 1908 Indian is conditionally rare in MS66, and just a handful of finer pieces are known.

The NGC population is 14 with 7 graded higher.

Listed at $24,000 in the NGC price guide.

Offered at $20,300

Just 3 Graded Higher – 1883-S Morgan Dollar NGC MS65

Although heavily touted as a conditionally scarce date in Mint State, the 1883-S Morgan remains collectible in grades through MS64, and is frequently offered at auction in that range. It is the Gem grade level from where this issue draws its recognition. In MS65, the 1883-S Morgan is a grand rarity in absolute numbers, and in the context of the series, is truly rare. Including possible resubmissions, there are fewer than three dozen Gem or finer examples seen by the leading certification services.

The NGC population is 12 (3 of which have been designated “Star”) with 3 graded higher.

Listed at $28,800 in the CDN CPG and $30,000 in the NGC price guide.

Offered at $25,900

Just 2 Graded Higher – 1884 Seated Liberty Quarter NGC PR68 Cameo

Only 8,875 quarters were struck in 1884 including 875 proofs, one of the lowest total production runs in the entire Seated quarter series. While this PR68 Cameo specimen is especially rare as a Proof, it is a piece of singular beauty and conditionally quite rare. Brilliant, glassy-mirrored silver fields surround frost-white devices on both sides of this exceptional example .

The NGC population is 3 with 2 graded higher.

Listed at $11,200 in the CDN CPG and $14,500 in the NGC price guide.

Offered at $11,800

Very Rare 1870–CC 50C Seated Liberty Half Dollar NGC AU55

The Carson City Mint opened for business in 1870. That year, it struck 11,758 silver dollars and 54,617 half dollars. From those figures, one might conclude that the 1870-CC dollar is rarer than its half dollar counterpart. But more dollars were set aside, and the 1870-CC half is certainly the greater rarity, as can be confirmed by both the NGC and PCGS Population reports. It is, in fact, the rarest Carson City half dollar issue.

The NGC population is a mere 2 with 6 graded higher.

Listed at $38,400 in the CDN CPG and $44,500 in the NGC price guide.

Offered at $34,000

Only 2 Graded Higher – Ever Popular 1856 S-9 Flying Eagle Cent NGC PR66

The most famous issue of the one cent denomination from the 1850s is the key 1856 Flying Eagle cent that was issued in extremely limited quantities during the transition from the large copper cents that were issued from 1793 to 1857. The Mint was looking for an alternative to the bulky and expensive-to-produce cents of prior years. After numerous trials, they settled on the small size that remains the same today, and they chose a composition of 88% copper and 12% nickel. The new composition resulted in a coin that was much lighter in appearance than the earlier coins.

Snow-9 is the typical variety encountered among proof 1856 Flying Eagle cents. Its availability, though, does not lessen its appeal to collectors, most of whom simply want a single, attractive example of this key date. The variety is also conditionally scarce at the Gem grade level, and it is rare finer.

The NGC population is only 3 with 2 graded higher.

Listed at $60,000 in the CDN CPG and $62,500 in the NGC price guide.

Offered at $45,000

1907 Flat Rim High Relief Saint Gaudens Double Eagle NGC MS67

Numismatists are familiar with Augustus Saint-Gaudens’ eagle and double eagle, but his oeuvre included statues, bas-reliefs, medallions, cameos, and works in other media. As a teenager he began his career with an apprenticeship to a cameo-cutter before he left for Paris in 1867. Although he was able to make some money selling cameos in New York City, by his own accounts they did not sell well in Paris, where other artists were more skillful. Saint-Gaudens would soon create works on a grander scale, but his experience with cameo-cutting would come in handy when he was commissioned to design medals and, later, coins.

It is impossible to say which of Saint-Gaudens’ many works was the most important, but certainly his statue of General William Tecumseh Sherman is one of the most lauded, and the figure of Victory (Nike) in the monument would later be used as a model for the double eagle. This statue also brought Saint-Gaudens into contact with Roosevelt, who was vice president at the time, and their collaboration would later result in the beginning of the American coinage renaissance.

Saint-Gaudens wanted his statue of Sherman to be positioned near Grant’s Tomb, which was completed in 1897, for artistic and historical reasons. Roger Burdette (2006) writes, “After a chance meeting on a train returning from the Buffalo Exhibition in May 1901, he sought the intervention of vice-president Theodore Roosevelt in an attempt to secure his preferred location of the statue.”

Although Roosevelt was unsuccessful and the statue was placed at the southeastern corner of New York’s Central Park, he did not forget his encounter with Saint-Gaudens. Less than four years later, Roosevelt would ask Saint-Gaudens to redesign some of the country’s coins. The coins were Saint-Gaudens’ final project, and the 1907 High Relief double eagle was the fitting capstone to the artist’s distinguished career.

The physical perfection of this coin makes one realize why Theodore Roosevelt was so proud of these pieces and why he used them for presentation purposes.

Most 1907 High Reliefs are a pleasure to behold. This one, however, is (even) much better than that!

The NGC population is 20 (two of which have been designated “Star” by NGC) with 5 graded higher.

Listed at $312,000 in the CDN CPG and $290,000 in the NGC price guide.

Offered at $208,100

Just 1 Graded Higher (and Barely) – 1861 Gold Dollar PCGS MS67

Like other gold denominations, gold dollars were minted in generous quantities in 1861, a year that saw a large influx of the yellow metal from out West. After the outbreak of the Civil War, gold and silver were quickly driven out of circulation by hoarding, so it is unsurprising to find that the 1861, with its mintage of 527,150 pieces, is readily collectible in Mint State grades through MS62 and MS63. Even near-Gems do not pose much of an issue. The certified population thins out in MS65 and drops precipitously beyond that.

The PCGS population is only 3 with 1 graded higher, the latter being an MS67+ example.

Listed at $24,000 in the CDN CPG and $30,000 in the PCGS price guide.

Offered at $23,100