Mintages of Silver Dollars during the 1840's and 1850's were limited when compared to copper and smaller denomination silver coins of the same era. Silver Dollars saw limited circulation within the borders of the United States with much of the mintage of this denomination being shipped abroad for use in the "China trade." In the late 1840's and early 1850's, huge shipments of gold from the Californian gold fields drove down the world price of gold, raising the relative value of silver to a level where silver Dollar coins far exceeded their face value. Silver hoarders and speculators sent enormous quantities of the coins overseas to be melted for profit, rather than depositing the coins at the United States Mint. As a consequence, many dates in the silver Dollar series from 1840 to 1873 are much rarer than their already small mintage figures suggest.