Comments by "Sar Jim" (@sarjim4381) on "The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered" channel.

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  4. Michael, the Carson City Mint dollars came from the Treasury Department. They were being held in reserve for those exchanging silver certificates for silver dollars. That's how I got started collecting them back in the late 50's. Hard to imagine now, but a common date silver dollar was worth exactly one dollar. Convertibility of silver certificates to silver dollars ended in 1964 as the price of silver was rising above the value of .77 ounces of silver in the dollar. Treasury still had almost 3,000 $1,000 face value bags of silver dollars in 1964, and this supply was shipped to the West Point (NY) Bullion Depository until a decision was made on how to dispose of the coins. The process started in 1970 when GSA employees, with the guidance of a committee of professional numismatists started separating the coins into grades from uncirculated to circulated. It was decided to offer these in mail bid sale in 1972 with a minimum bid of $30. Almost all were CC coins, and the date and quantity lists sent shockwave through the collecting community. Some of the most expensive date like the 1879 and 1882-1884 were considered rare because so few were available, and the assumption was most had been melted in great silver melts of the 1920's. In fact, they were rare because Treasury was holding enough of them to make it seem like so few were left. CC dollar prices collapsed almost overnight once the lists were released. Without knowing how many more of each date were left in the hoard, many collectors left the CC dollar collecting hobby in disgust. Bidding was much less than had been anticipated. Only 700,000 of the 1.7 million offered were sold. It took the rising price of silver, six more sales, and renewed collector interest before all the silver dollars were finally sold in 1980.
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  36. Humberto, Thanks. My dad wanted to be a pilot but, like you, he was washed out because of his eyesight. He spent his three years in the Pacific as a motor machinist mate on a PT boat. That's cool that you managed to get all the way up to your commercial transport license and are flying a later model of the plane that my dad helped to engineer. He started working on the 747 gear when it was still a design project for a military transport. When that contract went to Lockheed for what became the C-5 Galaxy, he thought he was done with that project. He would have been if not for Juan Trippe having the vision to see this monster as a viable airliner. I believe the basic structure and hydraulics of the gear is still the same as it was on those original Pan Am 747-100's. Ironically, the best flight I ever had on a 747 was six days after 9/11 on an Air New Zealand flight from LA to Fiji for a dive trip. We had planned the trip for a year, and we were going as long as they could get the flights restarted. IIRC, there were a grand total of 18 of us on that almost brand new 747-400, all of us in free first class seats and eating free first class food. The number of pax's must have been close to the number of flight attendants on the trip since it seemed like I had my own personal attendant for the flight. Marilyn was her name...but I digress. It's a long ass haul to Fiji but, with the main cabin virtually empty, we all had our own beds, stretched out across that whole center row of seats. Marilyn bought me blankets and extra pillows to make sure I was comfortable. What flight that was!
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