Looks clear cut…
It looks possible to draw what at first appears to be a clear distinction between two very basic kinds of these large silver coins – those that include the words ‘trade dollar’ or equivalent ( eg, French “piastre de commerce”) in their design and those that do not.
First approximation
The underlying coin type is essentially that of a ‘piece of eight’ which set the weight and fineness standard globally for something like 400 years from the late 1500s…
What’s often called a “Spanish Dollar”, an 8 Reales from, let’s say, Spain or Latin America generally, ie including things like Mexican Republic items, counts as undeniably being a world silver trade dollar, although without those words on it, simply because that’s what it was used for a lot!
So far, so good – these are pretty distinctive coins.
Expansion…
Fast forward to the generally late 19th century and we can add to the basic set with the stuff produced by various empires – intended specifically to boost their share of international trade – and firmly based on the well established ‘8 Reales’ standard.
Interestingly, there was significant variation amongst the different end products, although everyone was there or thereabouts; say somewhere from 26-28g of roughly .800 to .900 silver.
As it happened, there was variation also in terms of the exact wording on the the final result – which in most cases had ‘trade dollar’ written on it …
… and maybe additional information – eg, United States’ pieces included ‘420 grains, 900 Fine’ … but the British, with a coin clearly intended for Asian trade, went for ‘one dollar’ only, and the other side Chinese script…
Anyway, despite the variety, the additional group seems fairly clear – they are roughly late 19th to early 20th century with some part of the design aimed at marking the piece as ‘international’.
Still, in this period we find a range of big, silver coins that don’t really have that ‘international’ element in their designs, yet do have it in regard to historical function – basically a single country issue that clearly circulated over a much wider area, but in terms of how it looks is missing a couple of words … is ‘world trade silver dollar’ applicable to them ?
Other coins that did trade
I’m thinking here of things like British crowns which passed freely and were not restricted to Europe.
Or Straits Settlements Dollars, more than a few doubtless escaped to circulate all over SE Asia in a similar fashion to the ‘official’ trade variety.
Those two may well fit, however there are others that may not – a 1914 Japanese silver Yen shows “416” and “900”, but there is a range of earlier Yen types with ‘trade dollar’ included in addition, so should one be ‘in’ and the other ‘out’ ?
Something similar applies to the US Morgan dollar, very different in appearance to the trade version which had a relatively limited run (1873-1885).
The trade version is distinctive enough to probably keep the Morgan ‘out’ – realistically, it’s personal preference which counts and that’s as it should be… in the end I don’t worry too much whether or not “trade dollar” appears, as sizeable silver coins just look great together!
Happy Collecting!
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