Morgan Silver Dollars

Reasons For Collecting Morgan Silver Dollars

Coin enthusiasts are drawn to the fun and rewarding hobby of collecting Morgan Silver Dollars for a wide variety of reasons. The Morgan dollar became the first standard silver coin dollar to be minted after the fourth Coinage Act was passed stopping the production of the Seated Liberty dollar and also ending the free coining of silver.

The coin was minted from 1878 and 1921 but this was not continuous. It was named after its designer George T. Morgan who was the assistant engraver of United State Mint. The obverse of the coin has a portrait that represents liberty while the reverse an eagle with outstretched wings.

The Bland-Allison Act authorized the dollar, requiring between 2 and 4 million dollars worth of silver to be purchased by the treasury at market value that would be coined each month into dollars. This act was then repealed by the Sherman Silver Purchase Act in 1890. This Act required the purchase of 140,000 kilos of silver in every month but it only required the production of silver dollars for only a year. In 1893 the Act was also repealed.

In 1898 a bill was approved by the Congress requiring all the bullion that remained from those bought under Sherman Silver Purchase Act to be coined into dollars. The mint stopped striking the Morgan dollar after depletion of silver reserves in 1904. In accordance to Pittman's Act which authorized the melting and recoining of silver coins the Morgan dollars began mintage for another year in 1921.

A large number of uncirculated dollars were found available from the Treasury vaults that included issues that were once thought to be rare in 1918. This saw many people buy them in large quantities at the face value. The Treasury eventually stopped exchanging the coins for silver certificates.

Morgan dollar coins were manufactured in five different mints with each placing its trade mark below the eagle's tail on the reverse side between D and O in the word dollar.

CC - Carson City mint
S - San Francisco mint
D - Denver mint
O - New Orleans mint
If blank represented Philadelphia

Today People collect Morgan Silver Dollar coins for different reasons.

Reasons To Collect Morgan Silver Dollars May Include:

• Thinking it's a good investment.

• As a way of spending ones spare time.

• Having an interest in early American coinage and/or U.S. history.

• If interested in the coins for their intrinsic beauty.

Steps To Take When Collecting Morgan Silver Dollar Coins:

• Gain information about the coins; this can be done through reading about the coins, mintage features of each variety and the mints that manufactured them.

• Formulate a plan that would help in collecting the coins example set a goal to obtain the readily available issues in high grade like well-matched MS-65.

• Learn the characteristics of each coin- which have features that are weakly defined and which are sharply stricken.

• Get to know the market prices- this can be done through consulting price guides such as dealer offerings, Coin Dealers Newsletters and others. This helps in determining the market levels.

Lastly, have a buying strategy- whether to buy from one dealer or from many, whether to have a buying budget or not.

These are some of the steps to take to become a knowledgeable collector of Morgan Silver Dollars.

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