10,000 Dollar Bar

Travel the world and let others experience a brief connection to the old west in Montana.

This token commemorates the 50,000 Dollar Bar (used to be the 10,000 Dollar Bar) that boasts the largest collection of its kind.  The silver dollars are publicly displayed in this unique bar in Western Montana.  This 50,000 plus Silver Dollar collection was started by Gerry and Marie Lincoln in 1952.  Now in their fourth generation, the Lincoln family continues the Silver Dollar collection.  People from all over the world have their names inscribed.  Over $2500 are embedded in the bar top with the remainder graciously adorning the surrounding walls and ceiling.  The total facility includes a restaurant, motel, free RV parking, gas station, convenience store, casinos, and Montana’s

The business had its start in 1951 when Rex Lincoln’s parents, Gerry and Marie Lincoln, built a small bar along old Highway 10, just west of Alberton, MT.

Back in those days Montana was home to the silver dollar. Lots of people were paid their weekly wages in "cartwheels." If you made a small purchase, you had to be careful about paying with a big bill, because you’d probably get your change in silver dollars. On October 1, 1952, Gerry cut a round hole in the top of the bar and pounded a silver dollar into it and inscribed his and Marie’s names beneath it.

Other people liked the idea and just a year later the collection of silver dollars had grown to over 2,000, and the Lincolns changed the name of their business from “Cherry Springs Bar” to “Lincoln’s 2,000 Silver Dollar Bar.” Since then the collection has continued to grow, and the business kept changing its name until it hit 10,000.

As for all those silver dollars that draw in travelers for a needed break, the big coins keep coming in at the rate of about 1,500 per year. The oldest and probably rarest coin in the collection is an 1876 Hong Kong trade dollar.

The Lincolns say, of the collection, 10,623 are real silver dollars, which does confirm the basic truth of the claim to 10,000 silver dollars. Since 1972, when silver prices escalated, people still bring in the dollars, but they’re Eisenhower dollars, a copper/nickel "sandwich" coin. Susan B. Anthony and Sacagawea dollar coins apparently aren’t welcome on these walls. In one image I pulled off the net, the count was 46,789 dollars.