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ThePittman Act was aUnited States federal law sponsored bySenatorKey Pittman ofNevada and enacted on April 23, 1918. The Act authorized the conversion of up to 350,000,000 standardsilver dollars intobullion and its sale or use for subsidiary silver coinage, and directed purchase of domestic silver for recoinage of a like number of dollars.[1] For each silver dollar converted into bullion, the Act also called for the temporary removal from circulation of an equivalent value ofSilver Certificates. These certificates were to be temporarily replaced with a new issuance ofFederal Reserve Bank Notes, including$1 and$2 denominations for the first time.[2]
Under the Act, 270,232,722 standard silver dollars were converted into bullion (259,121,554 for sale toGreat Britain at$1.00 perfineounce, plus mint charges, and 11,111,168 for subsidiary silver coinage), the equivalent of about 209,000,000 fine ounces of silver. Between 1920 and 1933, under the Pittman Act, the same quantity of silver was purchased from the output of Americanmines, at a fixed price of$1 per ounce, from which 270,232,722 standard silver dollars were recoined. The fixed price of$1 per ounce was above the market rate and acted as a federal subsidy to thesilver mining industry.[3]
The passage of the Pittman Act led to most coins of lesser value having much lower mintages in 1921, and no mintages at all, in 1922 — echoing what happened after theBland-Allison Act of 1878 was passed, which also resumed the coinage of silver dollars.
Further provisions relating to silver coinage were contained in the Thomas Amendment to theAgricultural Adjustment Act of 1933.
