What a craven act – the ruin of collectible silver dollars, Morgan or Peace, it was of no matter – all to keep Nevada’s gambling machines satiated. Collectors be damned. But that’s exactly what casinos in Nevada were doing in the mid-1960s when a coinage shortage and, in particular, a silver dollar shortfall threatened their businesses.
“The gambling casinos of Nevada, long the last stronghold of the vanishing American – otherwise known as the silver dollar – are in real trouble, partner,” reported the September 1964 issue of Coins magazine. “They’re running out of silver dollars for their one-armed banditti and their tables.
“This may seem like a joke to many readers, but it isn’t very funny to casino operators who have depended on the cartwheels as a firm and romantic fixture in a multi-million dollar business. “Not long ago the Treasury Department had millions of the things stuffed back in their vaults – enough to last for decades of normal use. But the recent rush on silver dollars
