As Albert Einstein is famous for theorizing, energy and matter are different forms of the same thing; they're completely interchangeable. And, the amount of energy in anything that has mass (which we'll simply equate with weight) can be calculated by multiplying it by the speed of light squared (E=mc2). So, we can ask: how much power (energy) does a Morgan or Peace dollar have, and what might that mean for you? 

No, I'm not going to launch into a bunch of math. I simply used a converter by Bogna Szyka at https://www.omnicalculator.com/physics/emc2 to determine that a .94 ounce (26.73 grams) Morgan or Peace dollar completely converted to energy would become 665,292,330 kilowatt/hours. And, that would be enough electrical energy to power your (typical) house for the next 60,068 years or so. 

However, before you decide to use that AG 3 Morgan or Peace dollar in the cuff links and tie clasps box your grandfather left you to power your house for the next 2,402 or so generations, you should know it's impractical (to say the least). A thermonuclear reaction in a hydrogen bomb converts less than one percent of the hydrogen (mass) to energy. The only way to convert 100% of the mass of anything to energy is to put it in contact with an equal amount of antimatter. When matter and antimatter come into contact, they annihilate one another, leaving behind an equal amount of pure energy. Stable antimatter doesn't exist naturally in our universe, but it's possible to create and trap antimatter during high-energy particle collisions at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) which sits astride the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva. If you could convince the CERN Council to let you use an accelerator only for making antimatter, you could make and store about one billionth of a gram per year. So, it would take you 26.73 billion years - about twice as long as our universe has been in existence - to create enough anti-matter to completely obliterate a Morgan or Peace dollar to pure energy. And the amount of energy you would have used and money you would have spent to create and store the antimatter would far exceed the amount of electricity bill savings you would get from your Morgan or Peace dollar. 

So, practically, the power of Morgan and Peace dollars is not in energy but is in bullion and numismatic values and collecting fun. 

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Photos: Canada 2015 100-dollar silver coin, San Marino 1984 500-lire bi-metallic (aluminum-bronze center and stainless-steel ring) coin, Germany 1979 five-mark nickel-brass coin, United States 1921 one-dollar silver coin and United States 1922 one-dollar silver coin