dollar of the daddies

English edit

Alternative forms edit

Etymology edit

A parodic alteration of dollar of the fathers (referring to the Founding Fathers and/or one's ancestors).

Pronunciation edit

Noun edit

dollar of the daddies (plural dollars of the daddies)

  1. (obsolete, colloquial) The pre-1873 American silver dollar.
    • 1877, “Currency”, in American Journal of Numismatics[1], volume XIII, Boston Numismatic Society, page 108:
      And now irreverent jokers complain that the "Dollar of the Daddies" is below pa.
    • 1896, “Appendix”, in Congressional Record: containing the procedures and debates of the Fifty-Fourth Congress, First Session[2], volume XXVIII, Government Printing Office, page 127:
      You say that you “want to restore silver"; now let us have the old conditions. “We want the 'dollar of the daddies',” is your cry.
    • 1898 September, Alexander E. Outerbridge Jr., “Curiosities of American Coinage”, in Popular Science Monthly[3], volume 53, D. Appleton & Company, page 601:
      Many persons believe that the so-called "dollar of the daddies," weighing 412½ grains (nine tenths fine), having a ratio to gold of "16 to 1" in value when first coined, was the original dollar of the Constitution.

Usage notes edit

This term was used with invective by opponents of free silver.