Trade Dollar as Quoted by Wikipedia

Trade dollar as quoted by wikipedia: "The trade dollar was a United States dollar coin minted to compete with other large silver coins that were already popular in the Orient. The idea first came about in the 1860s, when the price of silver began to decline due to increased mining efforts in the western United States. A bill providing in part for the issuance of the trade dollar was eventually put before Congress, where it was approved and later signed into law as the Coinage Act of 1873. The act made trade dollars legal tender up to five dollars. A number of designs were considered for the trade dollar, and an obverse and reverse created by William Barber were selected.

The coins were first struck in 1873, and most of the production was sent to China. Eventually, bullion producers began converting large amounts of silver into trade dollars, causing the coins to make their way into American commercial channels. This caused frustration among those who were given them in payment, as the coins were largely maligned and traded for less than one dollar each. In response to their wide distribution in American commerce, the coins were officially demonetized in 1876, but continued to circulate. Production of business strikes ended in 1878, though the mintage of proof coins continued until 1883. The trade dollar was remonetized when the Coinage Act of 1965 was signed into law."

Many people just copy and paste in to wikipedia without realizing how fictional much of the material can be. It's just that easy. Even people from the news media in America believed a falsified quote by an unknown wikipedia user that was apparently created by a recently deceased classical music conductor. Only to come to find out it was all a lie, but unfortunately the media could not cover their mistakes because they had publicly broadcasted, printed, and posted the faux inspirational quote.