1873-S

The 1873-S Seated Liberty Dollar is the famous "phantom" issue of the series, with Mint Director's annual reports showing 700 pieces struck at the San Francisco Mint in January 1873 but no surviving examples documented in any modern collection or auction catalog. The 1873-S carries the standard Christian Gobrecht obverse and the With Motto reverse that defines the Type 2 era from 1866 through 1873, with the S mintmark positioned below the eagle on the reverse. The 700-piece reported mintage is one of the smallest official figures in U.S. silver-coin history, and the complete absence of known survivors places the 1873-S among the most mysterious issues in American numismatics.

Researchers offer several theories for the missing 1873-S Seated Dollars: that all 700 pieces were melted at the San Francisco Mint after the Coinage Act of February 12, 1873 ended Seated Dollar production and before the coins were released; that the production was reported but never actually struck; that the 700 pieces entered circulation, were used in commerce, and were eventually fully consumed without any being saved by collectors. PCGS, the Professional Coin Grading Service, and NGC have never certified an 1873-S Seated Dollar, and the issue does not appear in any documented collection.

The 1873-S is classed as a Key Date on this site under the standard reporting convention, with the missing-issue status reflected in the prose rather than through certified-pop data. The 1873-S pairs with the 1870-S as the matched documented and undocumented San Francisco Seated Dollar rarities, with the 1870-S having approximately 9 to 12 known specimens and the 1873-S having zero documented examples to date. Any future discovery of a genuine 1873-S would constitute a major numismatic event and would require comprehensive institutional authentication. For the 1873-S mystery and the broader closing-year Seated Dollar production history, see the Seated Liberty Dollar series history.