1872-S United States Seated Dollar, San Francisco, California Mint

Specifications:
26.73 g, 0.900 fine silver, 0.7734 troy oz (actual silver weight)
Recorded mintage: 9,000
Catalog reference: PCGS #6970

Details:
Struck at the San Francisco Mint with a remarkably low mintage of only 9,000 pieces, the 1872-S Seated Liberty Dollar marked the end of a thirteen-year production drought at that facility dating back to 1859. This issue was produced in September of 1872, just months before the Coinage Act of 1873 (1873) demonetized silver and replaced the series with the Trade Dollar.

Contemporary records from the October 2nd, 1872, Alta California confirm that out of this tiny mintage, 1,000 pieces left San Francisco for China on October 1st aboard the steamship Great Republic. While the ship's manifest was dominated by silver and gold bars and Mexican silver dollars, these coins were specifically identified as United States silver dollars. To my knowledge, this is one of only three 72-S dollars known with chopmarks.

Notable chopmarks:

Stylized version of 由 - yóu - from, reason, cause

玞 - fū - inferior jade

Possibly 䄫 - qǐ - an ancient word with no known meaning

Unknown chopmark

A combination of 亻and 卩, with unknown meaning

Provenance:
Purchased from Hong Kong dealer Mateo Zhao in April 2025. Mateo notes that this coin was found in Guang Zhou (Canton), China around 2018-2019.