Beginning with the ancient Greeks, silver coins have been used in mass production for use as currency. It’s reasons for being favored for the production of coinage vary, though the most common reason is the fact that silver is a rare metal and therefore valuable. Other reasons are the fact that silver is easily melted back down to its original form from a coin, and is therefore easily changed from one use to the other, and because (like gold) it has a high weight to value ratio.

Silver coins have been produced by the United States for some time, with the most popular form being in dollar coins. These coins are not completely silver – ten percent is copper in order to add to the overall durability of the coin. For a brief period of time dating from around the year of 1804 until the discovery of the Comstock Lode in what is now Nevada, silver coins were not made. The Comstock lode was the first major discovery of silver in America, and it made silver available in large enough quantities that it was once again available to be used for coinage.

The most commonly sought rare silver coin is generally agreed to be the 1804 silver dollar, not only for their rarity, but because of their colorful history. What are now known as class III and class II silver dollars were illegally struck by then mint employee Theodore Eckfeldt. It’s generally agreed upon by the coin collecting community that the reason for Eckfeldt’s illegal minting of these coins was hopes of receiving extreme financial gain due to their rarity in later years.

However, the 1804 silver dollar is by no means the only rare silver coin to be desired by collectors. Other popular examples of a rare silver coin for collectors are Morgan Dollars from the years of 1878 to 1921 and peace dollars from the years of 1921 to 1935. These coins tend to be sought after by coin collectors not only for their status as a rare silver coin, but for the fact that they contain silver.

Silver, in recent years, has been skyrocketing in terms of value, drawing many potential investors. This rise in prices of silver is responsible for renewed interest among coin collectors in these dollars, as they no longer posses only historical value. Added with the rarity of the coin, the rising price of silver could mean that collectors will be seeing substantial opportunities for profit in the very near future.