AboutMyCoinMorgan Dollar Cheat Sheet
Notes
- Every Morgan dollar is 90 per cent silver.
- None were struck between 1905 and 1920, so the series runs 1878 to 1904 and then the single year 1921.
- Carson City struck Morgan dollars from 1878 to 1885 and again from 1889 to 1893, and in no other years.
Condition
As always, condition matters when it comes to Morgan dollars. Morgan dollars with all of their features, or with nice original lustre, should be set aside.
Dates
Dates and mint marks to be on the look out for.
| Date | Mintage | Rank | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1895 | 880 | Key date | Proofs only. No circulation strike of the Philadelphia 1895 is known. |
| 1893-S | |||
| 1894 | |||
| 1885-CC | |||
| 1881-CC | |||
| 1893-O | |||
| 1889-CC | |||
| 1893 | |||
| 1895-S | |||
| 1895-O | |||
| 1880-CC | |||
| 1888-S | |||
| 1893-CC | |||
| 1889-S | |||
| 1886-S | |||
| 1879-CC | |||
| 1892 | |||
| 1882-CC | |||
| 1884-CC | |||
| 1892-S | |||
| 1883-CC | |||
| 1903-S | |||
| 1894-S | |||
| 1892-CC | |||
| 1885-S | |||
| 1902-S | |||
| 1891-CC | |||
| 1894-O | |||
| 1887-S |
Common Morgan Dollar Errors
| Error | What settles it |
|---|---|
| 1878 eight tail feathers | Count the tail feathers under the eagle. The first 1878 Philadelphia dies had eight; every later die in the series has seven.A 7-over-8 also exists, where the tips of the old feathers show underneath the new ones. Eight clean feathers and seven with extra tips beneath them are two different coins, and the second is not the first. |
| Off-centre strike | Part of the design is missing and a plain crescent of blank metal is left in its place. The struck part stays fully sharp right up to where it stops.A coin ground, filed or mangled by machinery after it left the mint loses detail gradually and leaves burred metal. A genuine off-centre strike has a clean, sharp boundary and an untouched blank beside it. |
| Clipped planchet | A smooth curved bite out of the rim, with the rim flattened or the design weak directly opposite it.A coin cut or snapped after striking has a rough edge and a burr. That weakness opposite the clip is the part that is hard to fake, so if the rest of the rim is perfectly normal, be sceptical. |
| Die crack or cud | A raised irregular line wandering across the flat field, or a raised blob of blank metal over the rim where a piece of the die broke away.Raised is the die; cut into the surface is damage. If a fingernail catches in it, it is a scratch. Worth very little unless the cud is large. |
| Repunched mint mark | The mint mark shows a second, offset outline of itself, both impressions rounded and equally raised.Machine doubling is far more common and looks flat, shelf-like and shiny along its doubled edge rather than rounded. If the second image reads as a smear rather than a second letter, it is machine doubling and is worth nothing. |
| Lamination flake | A thin layer of metal peeling away or already missing, in a flat irregular patch, caused by impurities in the strip the blank was cut from.Corrosion and environmental damage look similar and are very common on coins that sat in the ground or in a damp jar. A lamination has a clean step down to the layer beneath; corrosion is pitted and rough. |
Rare Morgan Dollar Errors
| Error | What settles it |
|---|---|
| 1888-O doubled die obverse | Strong doubling on Liberty's lips, nose and chin on an 1888 New Orleans coin, both images rounded and clearly separated.Machine doubling leaves a flat shelf and is much commoner. The variety is scarce in any grade and very rare with lustre, so it is worth certifying rather than believing. |
| Micro O mint mark | A noticeably small O mint mark on an 1896, 1900 or 1902 New Orleans coin.All three were declared contemporary counterfeits in 2004, after it was shown they share a single reverse die. They are a curiosity rather than a mint variety, and they are not the ordinary coins of those dates. |
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