1987 Rainbow Trout AMC Silver Round

MintAmerican Medallion Corporation AMC (Houston TX)

IssuerRobert E. Westfall Inc

DistributorRobert E. Westfall Inc

A rainbow trout leaps from the water with a lure at its mouth and the line trailing from it, with a shoreline behind it. The legend arches across the top: "RAINBOW TROUT."

The Great Seal of the United States: an eagle with wings spread, an olive branch and bundle of arrows, E PLURIBUS UNUM banners, and thirteen stars in a pyramid inside a closed beaded ring, with no motto text. The legend reads "GREAT SEAL OF THE UNITED STATES," with "1 TROY OZ.999 FINE SILVER" along the base. No mint mark appears.

1987 Rainbow Trout AMC Silver Round Overview

The 1987 Rainbow Trout AMC Silver Round is a one troy ounce .999 fine silver round attributed to American Medallion Corporation (AMC) of Houston, Texas. Its obverse shows the fish at the moment every angler is waiting for: a rainbow trout thrown clear of the water with a lure in its mouth and the line trailing from it, a shoreline behind it, under the arched legend “RAINBOW TROUT.” It is a sport-fishing picture, not a fish-identification plate, and the line is what makes it one.

The species is Oncorhynchus mykiss, native to North America west of the Rockies and the same fish as the steelhead: the steelhead is the sea-run form, while the rainbow stays mostly or entirely in fresh water. It takes its name from its coloring, a blue, green or yellowish back spotted in black, a silvery belly and a pink-red band from gill to tail. It was a Western fish until hatchery men moved it. The first known transfer east went to New York State in 1874, credited to Seth Green, and the U.S. Fish Commission ran an egg-collecting station from 1879 to 1888 that distributed some 2.7 million eggs. From those beginnings it was planted on every continent except Antarctica, and it is now one of the most widely stocked game and farm-raised fish in the world.

Texas came to it late and made it a seasonal tradition. Rainbow trout cannot hold over through a Texas summer, so the state treats them as a winter fishery. According to a Texas Parks and Wildlife Department job completion report dated May 9, 1973, catchable rainbows were first stocked in the Guadalupe River below Canyon Dam in March 1966, a partnership between the department and Lone Star Brewing Company, which supplied the fish until 1969. About 6,000 trout went in that first season, and roughly 59 percent were caught within seven months. Anglers flocked to the river, and use rose more than 2,000 percent in the fishery’s first years. By the 1970s the department was stocking rainbows every winter, and for the 2008–2009 season it planned to release upward of 260,000 hatchery-raised trout at 119 sites across the state. A silver round of a hooked rainbow is, in that light, a distinctly Texas-flavored piece of sporting Americana, struck in Houston for a hobby that Texans took up in the cold months.

The reverse is AMC’s rendition of the Great Seal of the United States: an eagle with spread wings, an olive branch in one talon and a bundle of arrows in the other, a shield on its breast, and E PLURIBUS UNUM banners flying from its head. Thirteen stars gather in a pyramid inside a closed, beaded ring above the eagle, with no motto text. The arched legend reads “GREAT SEAL OF THE UNITED STATES,” and the base line reads “1 TROY OZ.999 FINE SILVER.” Unlike many AMC rounds, this example carries no “MADE IN U.S.A. BY AMC” line, so no maker’s name appears on either face. The same closed-medallion Great Seal appears marked and dated on AMC’s 1988 I Want You round.

1987 Rainbow Trout AMC Silver Round Attribution

This round carries no struck date, and no dated examples, catalogs, or original sales literature have been located. Production is attributed to 1987 under this site’s convention for AMC rounds, tied to the company’s adoption of the American Medallion Corporation name on May 18, 1987, and stated as an attribution pending discovery of contemporary documentation establishing an exact release date. The lack of a mark does not by itself date the round: unmarked AMC-style rounds are known from later in the period, including dated 1991–93 China Pandas, so a strike after 1987 cannot be excluded.

No struck mark appears on either face of this example, so the attribution to AMC rests on circumstantial evidence rather than a mint mark: the reverse is the closed-medallion Great Seal design that AMC used in-house, marked and dated, on its 1988 I Want You round, and a dealer listing reports an AMC-marked Rainbow Trout, sold in July 2011. The device on that marked reverse was not visually confirmed, and it has not been matched to this one. The manufacturer is therefore attributed to AMC, not confirmed, pending discovery of a marked example with the same obverse, packaging, or a COA.

No issuer or distributor documentation has been located for this round. Issuer and Distributor are both attributed to Robert E. Westfall Inc., AMC’s documented issuer and distributor during this period, under this site’s standing attribution for AMC rounds unless contrary evidence turns up. That attribution rests on the documented pattern rather than direct evidence for this piece, and is attributed, not confirmed.

1987 Rainbow Trout AMC Silver Round Notes

• The obverse carries no mint mark, and the reverse carries none either; the only struck text is the denomination line.
• A second Rainbow Trout reverse has been reported by a dealer, an AMC-marked Great Seal, but it has not been seen and its design is unconfirmed.
• The first catchable-trout stocking in Texas described in the Parks and Wildlife report was in the Guadalupe River below Canyon Dam, March 1966, with Lone Star Brewing Company.
• This round is one of several fish-subject rounds attributed to AMC; the grouping is a research convenience, not a series AMC is known to have marketed.
• Mintage quantity has not been documented and is recorded as Unknown.

1987 Rainbow Trout AMC Silver Round References

• Evaluation of a Catchable Trout Fishery, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department job completion report, May 9, 1973 — Fishes of Texas
• Texas Parks and Wildlife winter trout stocking — State Parks Getaways newsletter
• Rainbow Trout and Steelhead — National Wildlife Federation
• The Rainbow Trout — University of Guelph Aquaculture Centre
• Rainbow Trout silver round, sold July 19, 2011 — WorthPoint [insert URL]
• Documented example examined (this entry)
• Texas Stacker Archives

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