1934 Peace Dollar

After a Great Depression-induced hiatus beginning in 1929, the Peace dollar series picked back up again in 1934, which was the same year that most other U.S. denomination saw a significant uptick in mintage numbers after low production or (as in the case of the nickel, dime, quarter, and half dollar) no production for at least one of the previous few years. However, the United States Mint was back to rolling out a full line of coins for 1934, and Peace silver dollars were decently represented in that year’s crop of circulating U.S. coinage.

Philadelphia, Denver, and San Francisco each produced around 1 million Peace dollars in 1934. While those figures were small when compared to the mintage figures that correspond to dollar coins minted during the years 1922-1925, they are high enough to have kept 1934 silver dollars off the list of “rare coins.” A mint-by-mint breakdown of the 1934 production totals shows that Philadelphia minted 954,057 dollar coins, while Denver and San Francisco struck 1,569,000 and 1,011,000, respectively.

Nevertheless, you should still consider 1934 silver dollars as scarce, and therefore should avoid pieces that may have been cleaned, nicked, scratched, or otherwise damaged and, thus, substandard, as this will bring down values come resale time (or course, this advice applies to all coins, not just those that are scarce and valuable).

Values for 1934 Philadelphia and Denver silver dollars are not much higher than dollar coins from the more “common” years. $30 to $40 will purchase either of those 1934 dollar issues in the mid-circulated grades and about $125 will net you a specimen in Mint State 60. However, the 1934-S is much pricier across all grades; expect to pay $80 or so for an example in Very Fine and a hefty $2,000 for a Mint State 60 example. Peace dollar enthusiasts will also want to check out the 1934-D doubled die obverse, which costs around $40 in Very Fine and about $800 in Mint State 60.