The RCO Hallmarks on 2008 'Naked Backs'

(Varieties of #57 on the $20 base page)

After the FBI raid of November 14th, 2007, Liberty Services was temporarily out of business.  They had no office equipment, no dies for stamping silver and gold pieces and no mint willing to manufacture the rounds.  After the decision was made to continue producing Liberty Dollars in spite of this setback, it was decided that to guard against further confiscation of precious metal products by government, the orders would be shipped to ever changing locations throughout the country for distribution to customers.  What a shame that a perfectly legal business of selling gold and silver metal with artwork stamped on it should have to 'hide' its product from its own government!

The first post-raid Liberty Dollar (commonly called the 'naked back') had a large blank space on the reverse for individual RCO (Regional Currency Office) distributorships to use.  The RCOs acquired punches with their RCO logo on it for stamping the naked back pieces.  This page lists the existing 2008, one ounce Silver Liberty RCO hallmarked varieties.  Some RCOs did not acquire their punches until after the 2008 naked back was no longer available, so in order for the pieces to be made, someone who had the 2008 blanks had to ship them to the RCO for stamping.  As a result, some of the pieces pictured here are very scarce.  This site does not address what may or may not have been made by the RCOs on other sizes or dates of naked back Liberty Dollars.

The state and city of the RCO is beside each piece.  In additon to the RCO stamps there exist one promotional stamp (the porcfest free state project) and three PEACE stamps, which were ordered by RCOs.  These specially stamped pieces were not available through the Liberty Dollar distribution office and had to be ordered from the RCO who owned the punch.  I should also mention that a few RCOs ordered small stamps so they could also mark the 1/5 and 1/10 ounce LD sizes.  The larger stamp was used on 1 ounce and 2/5 ounce LD sizes.

As of July 4th, 2009 (the creation date of this page), there are 34 different hallmarks in this set.

 Addendum:

I should also mention that there were a few 'unsanctioned' stamps done by individual RCOs.  There is no way of knowing what might exist on the back of some of the 'naked backs'.  I know that some California RCOs asked for permission to do a skull and crossbones stamp.  Permission was officially denied because the implications of such a stamp were deemed to be negaive for Liberty Dollar.  I think the RCO made the stamp anyway and that a few pieces might exist.  There were also two or three word stamps (Willow Springs, Cabool, Mountain Grove) done by the Missouri RCO and stamped underneath the MO hallmark on #57.26.  I have no way of knowing what else might exist that was done 'unofficially'.

Many of these pieces were stamped by RCOs who are now deceased, so there is no prospect of any more ever being made.  The rarity of some of these pieces cannot be overstated.  As few as 20 pieces exist of some of them, like Idaho.

There were very few $50 base naked backs stamped with these punches because of the expense of the blank pieces.  A few were done like the NH moose, the MI Cass County Cash, Porcfest and maybe a couple of others.