The Peace Dollar: America's Last Silver Dollar

The Peace dollar was born from relief. After the First World War, a movement to commemorate peace on circulating coinage produced Anthony de Francisci's design: a radiant Liberty on the obverse, modelled in part on his own wife, and a magnificent eagle at rest on a rock, clutching an olive branch, on the reverse. Struck from 1921 to 1928 and again in 1934–1935, it was the last silver dollar made for circulation — the coin that closed an era that the Morgan had defined.

High relief vs. low relief

The first-year 1921 coins were struck in high relief, with Liberty's features standing dramatically proud of the field. Beautiful as they were, the high relief did not strike up fully and wore quickly, so the Mint lowered the relief for 1922 and every year after. The 1921 high-relief coin is therefore a distinct, more expensive one-year design within the series — and the single most important coin to understand before you start.

The set at a glance

The Peace dollar is a short series — 24 date-and-mint combinations — which makes a complete set a realistic goal. Most dates are affordable in circulated and lower mint-state grades. A few stand out as the keys that set the budget and the challenge.

• 1921 — first year, high relief; a semi-key everyone wants.
• 1928 (Philadelphia) — the lowest-mintage business strike; the classic key.
• 1934-S — common in low grade but a major rarity in high mint state.
• 1922 — by far the most common date; the ideal type coin.

Grading and the 2021 revival

Like all U.S. coins, Peace dollars are graded on the 70-point Sheldon scale, and the high points to check for wear are Liberty's cheek and the hair over her ear, and the eagle's wing. The relief makes a sharp, fully struck Peace dollar genuinely harder to find than the mintages suggest, so reward strike when you buy. In 2021 the U.S. Mint revived the design for a centennial issue alongside a 2021 Morgan — a modern collectible in its own right, and a fitting bookend for the series that ended American silver-dollar coinage a century before.