Sorry, new here. I've always been into collecting coins, but never really cared about their true worth. Well as a broke college student about to graduate I've been looking at my coins value and I have an 1895 Morgan Dollar. From what I can find they're super rare, but I may just be setting myself up for let down. Is there any information that y'all could share and are they really that rare? Thank you. I'll post pictures when my camera is charged.
Howdy John - Welcome to the Forum ! Well, they aint common that's for sure. But I wouldn't exactly call them rare either. Regarding value, we need to see the pics to judge that. And - it might be fake.
Welcome to the neighbothood, John! There were no circulation strikes produced in 1895, only proof coins, and the mintage was a mere 880. Even an impaired proof (circulated condition) is worth 5-figures. So, my question is, "How did a broke college student manage to acquire a coin this valuable?" My second question is, "Are you sure it isn't a counterfeit?" For several years now, high quality counterfeits have been produced in China, and many of the rare Morgan dollars such as this have been surfacing on the market. Chris
A lot of my coins I've gotten have been from my grandfather who worked for the Massachusetts Court System for over 30 years, so he came across a lot of them doing work in the older buildings. He was also one to always ask for any weird coins that people had for change, I've had it for at least 10 years.
Considering the potential value that it could represent, my suggestion would be to submit it to either NGC or PCGS for authentication and grading. The last one I saw sold at auction a couple years ago for $65K or so. Chris
Or instead of wasting $50-$100 on what is highly likely to be a counterfeit, he can post some pics here and we can give him an idea as to it's authenticity.
The first thing we need to know is if it has a mintmark or not. It's located below the bow of the wreath on the reverse, just above and between the 'D' & 'O' of DOLLAR. It will either be blank for Philladelphia, have an 'O' for New Orleans, or an 'S' for San Francisco. This will definitely tell you if you have a valuable coin or a SUPER valuable coin. I don't know if you can make it out, but the photo on my profile has an 'S' mintmark. Hope this helps.
According to Redbook the 1895P Morgan had no circulation strikes. Look on the reverse at the bottom for a mint mark, either P, S, or O. The 95s from Philadelphia were proofs only according to Redbook, and the S and O 95s were 400,000 and 450,000 respectively.
