1 Dollar "Trade Dollar" · “Trade Dollar”

The Trade Dollar: a U.S. coin made to win Asia, then disowned at home

In 1876 the United States did something it had never done before and has never done since: it told Americans that a coin still in their pockets was no longer money. That coin was the Trade Dollar — built to beat the Mexican peso in the markets of China, and then abandoned by the country that minted it.