The following article is from San Francisco newspaper Daily Alta California in 1885. While this article focuses on gold coins (containing some rather interesting firsthand knowledge of handling them), it gives some historical perspective of the late Liberty Seated coin period on the Pacific Coast.

In reading this, one must remember that from 1853 through 1878 silver subsidiary coins (half-dollar, quarter, double-dime, dime and the silver half-dime) were only legal tender to the amount of $5.00. You could not take your excess amounts of silver coin to the Treasury or any other federal facility and exchange it for gold coin. So in California a few years before this article was written, silver subsidiary coin were apparently useless for the banks to take in, as they could not loan the silver coin out again in amounts over $5.00.

It is hard to imagine today but our Liberty Seated subsidiary coins were sold as a commodity, selling at a discount to face value of from 1 to 3 per cent based on supply and demand. The Commercial sections of the newspaper daily quoted the exchange rate, however, I have yet to find what minimum amounts were needed to receive that published rate and whether there were additional "per transaction" fees. Either would make small exchanges of silver for gold that much more expensive.

Back issues of The E-Gobrecht can be found online here:
www.seateddimevarieties.com/LSCC.htm

For more information on the Liberty Seated Collectors Club, see:
www.lsccweb.org