1 Dollar '1879 Goloid Metric Dollar' Pattern, Silver

The goloid metric dollar was the invention of Dr. W. Wheeler Hubbell, who patented a gold-silver-copper alloy in 1878 and lobbied Congress aggressively to adopt it as the basis for American coinage. The idea was to embed a measurable gold content within a silver-sized coin, supposedly making fraud or debasement detectable by chemical assay. Congress was skeptical, but the Mint produced multiple pattern runs across 1878 and 1879 to test the concept under legislative pressure.

Judd-1627 is one of several goloid metric patterns struck in silver rather than the actual goloid alloy — a bureaucratic hedge, producing collectible die trials without committing to the metallurgy.