The United States Mint has canceled its plans to strike and release 2022 Morgan and Peace dollars. Production plans for 2022 Morgan and Peace dollars were scrapped because the Mint is unable to secure sufficient quantities of .999 fine silver planchets for minting them.

The Mint intends to resume production and sales of the Morgan and Peace dollars in calender year 2023, U.S. Mint officials announced March 14.

This calculated pause is directly related to the global pandemic’s impact upon the availability of silver blanks from the Mint’s suppliers, according to the Mint’s March 14 announcement. The suspension will give the Mint time to evaluate the best way to allocate its limited supply of silver to ensure the best customer experience it can, according to Mint officials.

“We’ll be required to make business decisions like this until the supply chain for silver blanks recovers from the disruptions caused by COVID-19,” said Mint Deputy Director Ventris C. Gibson.

“I want to ensure that our customers know,” she said, “that the modern renditions of the historic Morgan and Peace silver dollars will continue next year. Our goal is straightforward: to give our loyal customers the products they want and the service they deserve.”

The Mint is supplied with silver blanks by two vendors — Sunshine Minting Inc., with operations in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, and Henderson, Nevada, and Leach Garner, headquartered in Attleboro, Massachusetts.

The U.S. Mint secures 38.1-millimeter silver blanks for the Morgan and Peace dollars and commemorative silver dollars, and 40.6-millimeter blanks for American Eagle silver dollars.

Tom Power, president, chief executive officer and owner of Sunshine Minting Inc., told Coin World that there is no shortage of silver in the market to eventually be fabricated into blanks for the U.S. Mint and other government mints. The refineries are shipped the necessary raw silver metal from their customers, to then be fabricated into the necessary blanks from which finished silver products are made.

Power says supply chain issues, production capacity and shipping logistics are contributory factors affecting blanking problems.

The rising spot price of the precious metal is also affecting the supply chain, with shipments having to be insured at much higher values, Powers says, noting there are also limitations on shipping quantities.

Powers says the U.S. Mint has some limitations on its capability to produce certain quantities of specific products because of press capacity and manpower, which has been an issue since March 12, 2020, when COVID-19 restrictions pushed many logistical processes off-kilter.

U.S. Mint officials did not disclose which production facilities had been intending to produce the 2022 issues. Morgan dollars dated 2021 were produced at the Denver, San Francisco and Philadelphia Mints while the Peace dollars were struck solely at Philadelphia.

Those silver dollars were produced to recognize the centennial anniversary of the transition in 1921 from the Morgan to Peace dollar series.

While the 38.1-millimeter diameter of the 1921 issues was retained for the 2021 anniversary releases, the composition was changed, from the 1921 alloy of 90% silver and 10% copper to the same .999 fine silver now in use for commemorative silver dollar planchets.

The weight in silver content for each 2021 Morgan and Peace dollar was 0.858 troy ounce, compared to the 0.77344 troy ounce per coin in the 1921 production.

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