1922

The 1922 Philadelphia recorded the highest mintage of the entire Peace Dollar series at 51,737,000 pieces, more than three times the 1922 Denver figure and roughly 50 times the inaugural 1921 High Relief. The bulk of the year's output supported the recoinage program required by the Pittman Act of 1918, which had authorized the melting of 350 million silver dollars from Treasury stores and committed the Mint to replacing them within a fixed window. Anthony de Francisci reluctantly agreed to a relief reduction after the Mint demonstrated that the 1921 High Relief could not sustain large-scale production, and the 1922 design is the Low Relief that carried the series through every subsequent year.

Strike quality on the 1922 Philadelphia is consistent with the Low Relief retooling: cleaner Liberty hair detail, sharper eagle feathers, and far fewer high-point weaknesses than the 1921 had shown. Most surviving examples grade MS63 to MS65 from broken Treasury bag releases, with PCGS, the Professional Coin Grading Service, and NGC populations clustering at MS64 and MS65. The 1922-P is one of the few Peace Dollars where MS66 is genuinely available because of the deep certified pool and the favorable strike. Van Allen-Mallis varieties exist for the year, including doubled-die obverses, but most VAM listings are minor and do not command material premiums outside specialist collector demand.

The 1922 Philadelphia is a regular common date and the standard entry point for collectors building a Peace Dollar date set. Treasury bag releases from the 1950s and 1960s seeded the modern collector market, and certified MS64 examples remain inexpensive enough that the issue never anchors a registry-set decision. Original sealed bags still appear at major shows occasionally, and breaking one into individual high-grade pieces remains a profitable exercise for dealers given the deep PCGS and NGC certified pool at MS64 and MS65. For the Pittman Act backdrop, the High Relief to Low Relief design transition, and the broader 1921-1935 series history, see the Peace Dollar series history.