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The Morgan silver dollar, minted between 1878 and 1921, has no real peer in the numismatic world. It is by far the most widely collected and traded numismatic coin in the world. Attend any coin show and you will quickly see that slabbed and raw Morgan dollars are everywhere. Look through the typical mail order dealer’s catalog or advertisement, or those of higher end dealers and auction houses, and again, you will encounter lots and lots of Morgan dollars. Peace dollars are popular too, and have the advantage of being a much shorter set that is not very hard to complete depending on the desired quality, but they have never been as widely collected as Morgan dollars.
There is certainly no shortage of Morgans in the marketplace. Hundreds of millions of the coins were minted in large part because of legislation that required them to be made in quantities that far exceeded what was needed for commerce. That is because there was a very powerful lobby in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that represented silver mining companies. In 1918, in an effort to prop up the price of silver, more than 270 million Morgan dollars were melted, and the silver bullion was sold to India. Millions more were melted later.
No records were kept of which coins were melted, so over the years numismatists have attempted to piece together estimates of surviving coins from various written sources. Even with all that melting, millions of the coins survive to this day. According to estimates by Q. David Bowers and other noted experts, there are 100 to 200 million Morgans and as many as 65 million mint state coins alone, with more than 10-15 million of them 1921 dollars.
As a result of all the overproduction of Morgans, some dates, especially the 1921 coins, as well as others such as the San Francisco mint marked coins from 1880-1882, are quite common even in high states of preservation. The 1921 coins are by far the most common, with more than 85 million minted between the Philadelphia, Denver and San Francisco mints. They were made from a different die than coins from 1878-1904 and are flatter and generally less attractive, especially the San Francisco coins which are very poorly struck.
Morgan dollars are an endlessly fascinating coin series. Completing the full set of approximately 100 coins, depending on whether or not one includes overdates and major die varieties, even in circulated grades is a daunting challenge, and for many a lifelong quest. Some people chose to build a date set and don’t worry about having one from every branch mint. Others focus on VAM’s, which are die varieties that are named after Leroy C. Van Allen and A. George Mallis. To acquire the scarcer dates, be prepared to spend substantial money even for lower grade coins. The 1895 only exists in proof, and the 1893-S is the rarest business strike issue, with fewer than 100 in existence.
Another very popular specialization is to collect only the coins minted in Carson City, Nevada, especially those still in their original black boxes from the General Services Administration. The GSA conducted a series of auctions and mail order sales of the coins from 1972 to 1980. Some of the Carson City coins, like the 1882-1884 issues are common in grades up to MS-66, but others are extremely rare, especially the 1889-CC, of which only one coin exists in the original GSA holder. When NGC grades the GSA-housed coins, it uses a blue and white band that goes around the holder with the grade indicated instead of removing the coin from its GSA box. But a larger number of CC coins on the marketplace are not housed in the black boxes and may have come from a different source than the GSA sales.
To collect Morgan dollars it is critical to understand the differences in key surface characteristics, especially strike, luster, and contact marks, associated with different branch mints and with coins of different years. To specialize in Morgans and build a collection of lasting value I strongly suggest consulting experts who have studied the coins for many years. Since most people can’t afford to pay for an expert consultation, or spend years studying the series before beginning a collection, it is helpful to rely on published sources. The best single one is Q. David Bowers’, Guidebook of Morgan Silver Dollars, now in its third edition.
Mr. Bowers is widely considered the dean of American numismatists, and is the most prolific coin author of all time having written well over 50 books. He became a coin dealer at the age of 17 and writes a weekly column for Coin World. He has bought and sold virtually ever major rarity and is the person who was chosen to appraise and sell by auction the greatest coin collections of all time, the Garrett and Eliasberg collections. Mr. Eliasberg, a Baltimore, Maryland banker, is the only person who ever owned a complete collection of American coins.
The prices in the third edition of his Morgan guide book from 2007 are now outdated, but the information on the history of the coins and especially the date-by-date and mint mark analysis is absolutely essential to building a solid collection. Coins of one year and branch mint were struck very well such as many from Philadelphia, whereas, for example, coins from New Orleans are notorious for their poor strikes, particularly in the obverse center of Miss Liberty’s hair just above her ear and on the reverse on the breast feathers. Coins from 1878, which are very popular, are made from different dies and always come with shallower breast feathers. There are also several major varieties of 1878 dollars based on the number of tail feathers on the eagle.
If a collector does not understand these points, he or she will not know what to look for in selecting a good coin for the grade. When I look at Morgans at a coin show or dealer’s store, I always zero in on the center of both sides, carefully studying the strike, luster, marks, and overall eye appeal, which is the most important factor when assessing a coin’s appearance. And before I look for a certain date, I make sure to consult Mr. Bowers guide book and other sources.
One also needs to know how to grade Morgans and to understand the differences between say an MS63 coin and an MS65 coin, which are substantial despite the two-point difference. In fact, the major coin grading companies were in many ways created because in the 1970′s and early 1980′s Morgan dollars were traded very widely by many coin dealers with subjective grading designations such as “Gem BU.” Subjective grading terms proliferated and prices for what seemed like the same grade varied dramatically. Some kind of more scientific approach was needed to protect the consumer and undergird the market.
The various published grading guides are very useful for learning the basics, but there is no substitute for seeing lots and lots of coins. One reason dealers tend to be better graders than collectors, which is not necessarily true if the collector is more advanced and experienced, is that they come across so many coins in the course of their work.
So many mint state Morgan dollars exist today in large part because they were saved over the years in canvas Treasury bags, where they knocked against each other when moved, and hoarded by people such as Lavere Redfield. This resulted in bag marks, contact marks and abrasions, and sometimes colorful toning even though they were never used in commerce. In 1962 the Treasury department discovered large quantities of Morgan dollars in bags that had been sitting around for decades, including the three million Carson City coins that were later sold by the GSA, and many previously scarce coins.
One of Mr. Bowers’ favorite tales is that of the 1903-O Morgan dollar, which in the 1960′s was the rarest Morgan dollar. Mr. Bowers said he never encountered a mint state one in his years as a young dealer. But in November 1962 when bags with hundreds of thousands of the coin in uncirculated condition were discovered, overnight the coin’s value plummeted from $1500 to $15. Today it is a mid-range date and sells for approximately $400 depending on the grade. In March 1964 the Treasury halted sales of Morgan dollar bags. By 1967 the New York Mercantile Exchange was trading bags of these coins for more than twice face value at a time when the price of silver was fixed at $1.29, as Mr. Bowers recounts in a new book on precious metals called “Precious Metal,” which I plan to review soon.
In the second part of this article (Click Here), I will interview one of the most experienced Morgan dollar dealers in the country, professional numismatist Steve Estes of Portland, Orgeon. I will ask him about the recent explosion in prices for common-date uncirculated coins and whether he thinks those prices are sustainable and other issues.
Louis Golino is a coin collector and numismatic writer, whose articles on coins have appeared in Coin World, Numismatic News, and a number of different coin web sites. He collects U.S. and European coins and is a member of the ANA, PCGS, NGC, and CAC. He has also worked for the U.S. Library of Congress and has been a syndicated columnist and news analyst on international affairs for a wide variety of newspapers and web sites.
The 1895 Morgan Dollar: The 1895 Morgan Dollar is known as the “King of the Morgan Dollars” because it is the rarest and most valuable of the entire Morgan Dollar series. PF-68 specimens of this rare coin have sold for upwards of $120,000 at auction.
According to U.S. Mint records, there were 12,000 regular circulation Morgan Dollars struck for 1895, and 880 Proof specimens struck. However, only 75 to 80 of the 1895 Morgans have been accounted for, all of them Proofs. Where did 12,000 plus coins go?
A Mysterious Disappearance?: Numismatic scholars are divided in their opinions as to why the 12,000 business strike specimens of the 1895 Morgan Silver Dollar have vanished into history. Most believe that the coins were never minted in the first place, and that this notation in the Mint accounting ledgers is in error. Some believe that the coins were minted, but melted down for various reasons. I even read one theory that proposes the coins were lost at sea in a shipwreck.
Why is it Called the “Morgan” Dollar when it Depicts Lady Liberty?: Actually, the Morgan Dollar (so-called because it was designed by George T. Morgan) has been called much worse. When it first came out, it was an unpopular coin frequently derided as the “Buzzard Dollar” because of the shape of the eagle’s head and the eagle’s generally scrawny appearance. Another popular term for the Morgan was “Cartwheels.” The proper term for the coin type is the “Liberty Head” dollar.
Millions and Millions of Morgans!: Although the Morgan Dollar wasn’t very popular when it first came out, we know today that it is one of the most popular coin types in the entire U.S. coinage series. Why did this change?
The answer is, millions and millions of Morgans! More than half a billion Morgan Dollars were made between 1878 and 1904, largely because of a law called the Bland-Allison Act, passed by Congress in February of 1878, which mandated that the Treasury must buy 2 to 4 million troy ounces of silver per month!
The “Silver Dick” Lobby: The Treasury was forced to buy this incredible amount of silver, which was flowing out of the Comstock Lode in Nevada, because of a group of silver mine owners who had formed a lobbying group. Led by Congressman Richard “Silver Dick” Bland, the silver lobby was able to pass legislation that made the U.S. Treasury its biggest customer.
Of course, the Treasury had to do something with all this silver, so it had the Mint produce the Liberty Head, aka Morgan, Silver Dollars.
Morgan Dollars are Called the “Buzzard Dollars”: The Morgan Dollar wasn’t very popular. The eagle was considered ugly, and the coin was derisively called a “cartwheel” for its large size and weight, so the Morgan Dollars sat in government vaults for many years, languishing in obscurity. Hundreds of millions of them were melted down again through the years, and many, such as the 12,000 made in 1895, are unaccounted for. But there were still plenty of Morgans to go around, since they only circulated in a few small areas.
The Silver Certificate Secret: Sometime around 1960, certain coin dealers became aware that the Treasury was giving out Morgan Dollars that were more than 80 years old, on a dollar for dollar basis, in exchange for silver certificates. Many of the dealers were just after the silver bullion at lower-than-market cost, but others realized the potential collector value of these 60 to 80 year-old mint state silver dollars. Tens of millions of Morgans were bought at face value until 1964 when the Treasury shut this practice down.
The Public Finally Wakes up to the Beauty of the Morgan Dollar: The Treasury had about 2.9 million Morgans left in 1964, mostly scarce Carson City specimens, which the GSA put up for public sale via mail-bid auctions starting in 1972. By 1980, as the supplies dwindled, the public finally became interested in the beautiful Morgan Dollar. The real feeding frenzy came, however, when an amazing hoard of more than 400,000 Morgans was found in the basement of Nevada miser LaVere Redfield after his death in 1975.
Morgan Mania at Last: The Redfield find got a lot of publicity, and as the U.S. population had become a lot more familiar with the value of its silver coins in the years following the change from the silver coinage to the clad coinage, the Morgan Dollar finally came into its own as a popular collectible series. The publication of the “Comprehensive Catalog and Encyclopedia of Peace and Morgan Silver Dollars” by Leroy Van Allen and George Mallis, (the VAM book) also spurred significant collector interest in Morgans.
Wham VAM, Thank You Ma’am: The VAM book, so named for the initials of its authors, really boosted the values of Morgan Dollars into the big time. This book lists all of the known die varieties of the Morgan Dollar series, and got collectors to examine their coins more closely for detail. Coins that were previously valued based on a given year’s known mintage of X number of specimens, now had sub-categories of specimens for that year based on die varieties. These sub-categories were naturally more scarce than just any coin from that year, so collectors who might previously have been satisfied with one specimen from each year and mint, now had to have several from each to complete the “set.”
The Holy Grail of the Morgan Dollar Series:
For the rarest Morgan Dollar year/mint variety of them all, the 1895-plain, there are no business strike specimens known to exist. And even though 880 Proof specimens were struck according to Mint records, there are various estimates as to how many remain, ranging from 75 to 80, to upwards of 500! Some of the Proof specimens have been circulated, usually by accident because the Mint didn’t always package them so nicely as they do today, but no business strike example of the 1895 Morgan Silver Dollar has ever been found.
Is it out there? Possibly. If so, if it ever comes to light, it will be one of the most spectacular finds ever in American numismatics!
Come discuss Morgan Dollars with us in the Coin-Collectors Forum.
Special thanks to WackyWolf, a Forum member who offered corrections for this article.
CC Morgan Dollars
Morgan Coins & CC Morgans Investments
Morgan coins, morgan silver dollars, and cc morgans, despite all odds, have become a very popular and very solid investment you may want to consider – appreciating an average of 7 to 15% annual appreciation rate or more!
Morgan Coins – a Quick History
The first cc morgan coin was minted in Carson City in 1878 following the passage of the Bland-Alison Act requiring the US Treasury buy million of ounces of silver per month due to the mass amounts of silver coming out of the great Comstock Lode. Of course the Treasure had to so something with all this silver so it went on to strike over a half billion morgan coins, cc morgans, liberty heads and morgan silver dollars between 1878 and 1904 – with a last run in 1921.
Making $$$ with Morgan Coins & CC Morgans
When the cc morgan silver dollar first came out it was nick-named the “Buzzard Dollar” because the eagle looked grainy and it wasn’t very popular. So over the years millions upon millions of cc morgans were melted down – leaving limited quanities – and making for the perfect coin investment opportunity.
One coin analyst predicts the cc morgan silver dollars poised to increase the most in value in the next few years are the 1895 cc morgan, 1892-cc morgan, 1894 morgan coin, 1878-CC, and the 1883-CC. And if history is any indication, you can expect these rare cc morgan coins (especially the very popular carson city coins) to appreciate an average of 7 to 15% per year or more!
These five morgan coins have demonstrated over the years the strongest gains over a long period of time. And it is for this reason that you can expect these same coins to show a similar increase in value in the future IF you invest in MS-65 uncirculated quality or better.
Invest Only in High Grade CC Morgan Coins
Invest only what you can afford, but make it a point to only invest in the highest grade cc coins specimens. If you can afford to buy proof morgans, you should, because those have performed exceptionally well over the last fifteen years. The next best investments are the very high uncirculated MS-65 or better. Of course these high grade morgan dollars are pricey compared to MS-60 to MS-63, but their rarity virtually guarantees to make them a very good, high ROI investment.
Buy CC Morgans from a Reputable Source
Before you rush off to invest your hard-earned money in a MS-65 cc morgan, keep in mind not all dealers use the same grading standards and it is very much a “buy beware” situation. Only purchase cc coins that have been graded by a top-tier grading and that come in a top-tier grading service holder. Avoid all third-tier services like the plague.
- Top Tier – PCGS and NGC
- Second Tier – ANACS and ICG
- Third Tier – All others, including ACG, INB, NTC, PCI, SEGS, SGS, etc.
Bottom line: Morgan coins and cc coins which are in PCGS and NGC slabs or holder are worth much more than coins in slabs from any of the other minor grading services, because PCGS and NGC have consistent, exacting, and largely non-subjective standards for grading.
So what are you waiting for? Venture on over to eBay and find yourself a cc morgan silver dollar treasure today because we’re talking money in the bank!