The Origin of the Pittman Act
On April 23rd, 1918, Congress enacted the Pittman Act, which oversaw the melting of nearly half of every Morgan Dollar ever struck. To this day, this remains one of the largest mass melts of coinage conducted by the U.S. Mint in history. To this number in perspective, if each of the 270,232,722 Morgan Dollars melted during this act were stacked on top of each other, they would form a tower over 400 miles high. Why was such a large portion of the Morgan Dollar series destroyed in this manner? Like other coin melts, the answer lies with the current events of the time.
