$50,000 Silver Dollar Saloon On my trip home from my escape to the Oregon coast, I took I-90 straight through from Seattle to Helena, and just had to stop at the 50,000 Silver Dollar Bar (Exit 16, I-90 Haugan, MT). Because we have several members here that are heavily vested in silver dollars, I knew they might be interested to know more about this place, so here it is. This bar (Saloon as it used to be called) started in 1952 by a couple named Gerry and Marie Lincoln (you would think they would have had pennies, not dollars. LOL) as they liked to collect silver dollars. It is still owned by the family, now the 4th generation, and has grown to what it is today. It is said to be the largest gift shop in the ________ (you fill in the blank as I’ve read; Montana, USA, and the world). They keep a running total of the number of silver dollars, as they are still adding to the collection. It is now up to 75,000 silver dollars from the original bar that boasted 10,000. When the couple started a bar, they realized they needed a gimmick to draw in customers, so Gerry cut a hole in the bar top and hammered in a silver dollar, inscribing his and his wife’s name under it. It soon caught on and others that stopped by, did the same and soon the bar had 2,115 silver dollars in the bar top, complete with the person’s name inscribed under it. When they ran out of room on the bar top, they began putting them in boards and mounting them on the walls behind the bar. That was soon filled to capacity, so they simply began mounting additional boards on other walls, and finally the ceiling. In 2002, they celebrated their 50th anniversary and attribute the silver dollars in the bar to donors from Canada and around the world. At first glance, you, as a coin collector, would drool over the possibilities of discovering rare Morgan or Peace dollar, or finding errors in the coins, but of the 75,000 silver dollars, only 10,623 are Morgan or Peace dollars, with the others being Eisenhower dollars. Still, that’s a lot of silver dollars and you would spend a long time going through them, then, you wouldn’t be able to free them from the resin they are embedded in. One man that tried, got a bullet for his attempt, so I don’t think the Lincoln family would take kindly to anyone else trying it.
Thanks for posting and great write up! That is just way over the top!! Do they still allow new additions? Would gladly like to drop a buck on that.
