 During the nineteenth century , Mint employees produced unauthorized copies of medals and coins , sometimes backdated . Although coin restrikes were created openly at the Philadelphia Mint from the 1830s , the practice became clandestine by the end of the 1850s . In the decades after the first 1804 dollars were produced , collectors became aware of their existence and desired to obtain them . Several were struck at the Mint in 1858 . Those coins , which became known as " Class II " 1804 dollars , had plain , unlettered edges , as opposed to standard issue Draped Bust dollars and those struck as diplomatic gifts , all of which had edge lettering applied by the Castaing machine . In 1859 , James Ross Snowden unsuccessfully requested permission from the Treasury Secretary to create patterns and restrikes of rare coins for sale to collectors , and in that year , dealers began offering plain edge 1804 dollars to the public . At least three were offered for sale by various dealers in 1859 , and coin dealer Ebenezer Locke Mason claimed that he was offered three by Theodore Eckfeldt , a Mint employee and nephew of Adam Eckfeldt ( who had died in 1852 ) . After the public became aware that Mint officials had permitted restrikes , there was a minor scandal which resulted in a Congressional investigation and the destruction of outdated coinage dies . The controversy prompted William E. DuBois , Mint Assayer , to try , in 1860 , to recall the examples of the 1804 dollar in private hands . According to DuBois , five coins were known to be privately owned , of which four were recovered . He stated that three were destroyed in his presence , and one was added to the Mint 's coin cabinet ( of which he was curator , and which is today the National Numismatic Collection ) , where it remains today . The coin , which is the sole known Class II specimen in existence , was struck over an 1857 Swiss shooting thaler minted for a shooting festival in the Canton of Bern . The fifth coin , alluded to by DuBois , is not currently accounted for , although its edge may have been lettered after its recovery in an attempt to pass it as an original . Coins with added lettering are known as " Class III " 1804 dollars . The obverse coinage die used to strike the Class II and Class III 1804 dollars was deposited in safekeeping in 1860 , and the reverse die was destroyed in that year . The obverse die was defaced in 1869 . 
