GoldSilverHQ
Gold—Silver—

1792

Coinage Act

Congress writes gold and silver into the dollar at a fixed mint ratio.

1795 Flowing Hair silver dollar, obverse and reverse side by side.
Flowing Hair dollar (1795) — early United States silver coinage under the Mint Act framework.Public domain — National Numismatic Collection, Smithsonian (U.S. government work).

The Coinage Act of 1792 made both gold and silver legal tender at an official exchange, the mint ratio. The law could fix that ratio. The market did not have to keep it.

When world prices drifted, the metal that was cheaper at the mint stayed in the till and the other left. That is bimetallism as a statute, not a forecast of which metal wins.

Early U.S. coinage →