What is the value of a 1901 Joseph Lesher silver dollar?

Answer 1

The most common Lesher dollars have recently sold for about $1000 while the rarest have fetched into the hundreds of thousands.

Lesher "referendum dollars" were octagonal bullion coins privately minted in 1900 and 1901 by Joseph Lesher, a Civil War veteran and former miner. He established his own minting facility in Colorado as part of his efforts to increase the use of silver coinage in the Rocky Mountain area following the closure of the Carson City Mint in 1893. At that time private mints were allowed to operate in areas where coin supplies were scarce, so long as their products were distinguishable from official US Coins. The most common method of doing so was to make the "coins" non-circular, with an octagonal shape being the most popular.

Lesher's "dollars" contained a full troy ounce of silver and so were actually worth more than $1 at the then-current price of silver. They were called referendum coins because no one was compelled to accept them. In Lesher's view the number of people who used his coins as opposed to federally-issued ones would serve as a referendum on his products. The "coins" proved to be very successful but Lesher over-reached by claiming the coins could be redeemed at banks, and the Treasury stepped in. The Denver Mint opened in 1906 to provide official coinage, rendering private mints moot.