NEW BOOK: WHEN COINS WERE KING

When Coins Were King: The Coins, Power Struggles, and Personalities That Defined a Nation by Michael F. Moran is a scholarly and captivating exploration of America's rich monetary history, brought to life with hundreds of vivid images and a compelling narrative. Moran masterfully unveils the untold stories behind the nation's coinage in the late 1800s and early 1900s, a time when the coins that jingled in American pockets had real value in silver and gold. The story starts with the great Comstock Lode--a discovery of gold and silver that outshined the California Gold Rush--and fueled a rebound in our nation's shaky paper-driven economy after the Civil War. It gives the inside story of the outsized personalities that fought life-and-death struggles for economic control and political power at the time.

Against this backdrop, Moran details the political shenanigans, widespread corruption at the San Francisco Mint, and an unlikely cast of characters: the young, idealistic President Theodore Roosevelt...the nation's most-famous sculptor, Augustus Saint-Gaudens...the energetic, populist leader William Jennings Bryan...the sage Senator John Sherman...and many others who influenced our nation's coinage.

Full of rich storytelling and free from overwhelming statistics that tend to obscure the human element of defining moments, When Coins Were King offers a fresh perspective on the economic and political struggles that still echo today. A must-read for history buffs, numismatists, and anyone fascinated by the power of money.

I have known the Mike Moran for twenty years. I doubt anyone else possesses the unique qualifications to tell this story about our money. Mike has an engineering degree enabling him to understand the process of coin production. Serving his fourth four-year term on the mint's design review board, the Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee, Mike is a "grey-beard," knowledgeable in coin designs and the ways of the mint. In addition he has a masters degree in business that, coupled with his extensive business experience, enables him to understand and explain the financial policies that drove American coinage in its heyday.

The story begins with the discovery of the Comstock Lode on the western edge of what was Utah Territory. William McKendree Gwin, California's "first senator," was successful in slicing this barren land away to form a new territory called Nevada. His action gave the financiers in San Francisco the upper hand in developing this discovery that would eclipse the gold rush of 1849. Thus, Billy Ralston and his Bank of California crowd ruthlessly muscled out would be competitors.

Ralston's reign came to an ignominious end when his bank failed in 1875. The subsequent scandals would reach all the way to the director of the mint in Washington, D.C. Yet the silver from the Comstock Lode was not to be denied. Mined in never before seen quantities, it would flood the world's markets and create a political movement in the United States.

Mike details the story of John Sherman, first as the powerful chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance and then as treasury secretary, as he fought to stem the demand for unlimited silver coinage while maintaining a de facto gold standard for the international markets. This story is rich in detail including the fact that senators were well into their cups, in fact, embarrassingly drunk, in the early morning voting that restored the silver dollar as legal tender currency in 1878.

Mike also serves as an officer of the Congressionally chartered Theodore Roosevelt Association. He has in-depth knowledge of the rise of the twenty-sixth president. Roosevelt, serving on the Civil Service Commission, ran head into John G. Carlisle, the democratic secretary of the treasury. In anger over Carlisle's blatant political appointments, Roosevelt recommended that the Treasury Department, including the mints, come under the jurisdiction of the commission. Initially President Cleveland tabled Roosevelt's recommendation, but politics would force him to take that action in May 1896. With the stroke of Cleveland's pen, machine politics that had riddled each of the mints and assay offices came to an abrupt end.

The presidential election of 1896 proved an inflection point in the struggle of gold versus silver in American politics. The flamboyant William Jennings Bryan led silver democrats against William McKinley and the republicans. Theodore Roosevelt was in the thick of this campaign, delegated to follow Bryan through the swing state of Michigan, giving speeches supporting gold. In a little remembered speech in Detroit, Roosevelt proclaimed, "We are citizens of a republic ever brightened by the rays of the morning." This is the genesis of what would become the design for the spectacular obverse of the Saint-Gaudens twenty-dollar gold piece.

Mike, dealing from his past research, gives us both the genius and the flaws of Augustus Saint-Gaudens, America's premier sculptor at the end of the nineteenth century. From the ashes of the Morgan tomb fire to the his disastrous Columbian World's Fair award medal, Saint-Gaudens rises to create the Shaw Memorial and the Sherman Monument. Thus Theodore Roosevelt, recognizing William Jennings Bryan as the probable democratic candidate in 1908 with silver a likely campaign issue, turned to Saint-Gaudens to provide fresh designs for our gold coinage. In this manner Roosevelt sought to make gold coins tangible objects in the lives of everyday Americans. He never anticipated the delays he would have to surmount in the bureaucracy of the Mint Service. Nor did he realize that Saint-Gaudens was fighting a losing battle with cancer.

In the ensuing struggle, Mike presents the story in easily understood terms. He points out that Saint-Gaudens missed a golden opportunity in March 1907 to do an end run around engraver Charles Barber at the Philadelphia Mint. He also highlights a last revision made by Saint-Gaudens but never provided to Roosevelt as the sculptor sought a marriage of obverse and reverse designs that would effectively strike up when placed into mass production.

Mike also brings to focus a little recognized fact. While Roosevelt and Saint-Gaudens struggled over the design for the twenty-dollar gold piece in the spring and summer of 1907, the director of the mint paused the striking of these coins with the old design in Philadelphia. He compounded his error by not moving the vast hoard of gold coinage stored at the San Francisco Mint due to the cost of transportation. Thus when the Panic of 1907 hit, efforts to quell the run on the New York banks and trust companies were severely hampered by a shortage of gold coins. Roosevelt's drive for fresh designs on the gold coinage almost caused a blot on his presidency.

There are fresh insights on the origin of the Peace Dollar design as the story progresses through the recall of gold in 1934 and the withdrawal of silver coins from circulation in 1965. However Mike does not stop there. He tells the story of the legislation reauthorizing the mint to strike silver dollars in 2021. He and Tom Uram were the visionaries behind this legislation.

While this book covers a broad time span, it doesn't overlook the forgotten details that give life to the story. The use of the term "the one percent" to describe the rich and powerful was not invented in the current generation. And Franklin Roosevelt's "best birthday present ever," the Gold Reserve Act of 1934, was far from it.

Mike has married numismatics with American history in this story of the golden age of coinage in an engaging manner. It was a time when coins drove American politics – a time when coins truly were king.

Publisher ? : ? Whitman Publishing
Publication date ? : ? November 15, 2025
Language ? : ? English
Print length ? : ? 416 pages
ISBN-10 ? : ? 0794851002
ISBN-13 ? : ? 978-0794851002
Item Weight ? : ? 1.74 pounds

For more information, or to order, see:
When Coins Were King (https://www.amazon.com/When-Coins-Were-King-Personalities/dp/0794851002/ref=sr_1_1)

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