A decent looking 1889-S Morgan Dollar. Just one spot of damage on the reverse. You won’t see it in the Whitman’s folder. Hehe
Nice. I just snagged a nicely toned (and very oddly toned) 1891 Morgan for 40 bucks today. It has high detail but it's got some problems like environmental stuff going on. I may use this one as a guinea pig for a healthy dose of MS70 just to see what will happen. Science!
If you mean the cut at 11:00 o’clock, it’s not a chop mark of any kind that I’m aware of. In fact, I’ve never seen a chop mark on a Morgan Dollar.
That's interesting. Other than intentional stabbing somewhere back in days of yore, what could cause that cut? I've got some coins that will make a person scratch their heads at why anyone would intentionally do that? I've got a walking liberty that looks like someone took a drill bit and "tried" to drill 3 holes in it but failed to reach the other side. And they are in the middle of the coin, not where you'd do such to make a medallion necklace.
Your guess as to why is as good as mine or the next guy. Not sure about your Walking Liberty but it could be from shooting a 22 rifle as that’s a popular thing people do.
Maybe somebody was checking the core for authenticity? That looks very intentional. Damaging it in the process of course but still looks good. Or somebody took a sliver of silver out of it for their personal pile and then went out and spent it as a $1. Who knows.