This all started because once, I had read something about a broken or bent arrow on the reverse of the Morgan dollar, and it stuck in my mind. It's one of those things that you tell yourself you'll do some reading on, when there's time. One of my bad habits is that I don't jot down where I read these tidbits from. So tonight I googled "Broken Arrow Morgan Dollar," "Bent Arrow Morgan Dollar," and some other variations but had limited success. However, one link that popped up was a CoinTalk post from a member called @Clinker. https://www.cointalk.com/threads/trivia-the-1878-morgan-dollars.49490/#post-543256 The article is more than 12 years old but it's still relevant, very interesting, and helpful. After reading it, I understand about the bent arrow. But that's not the end of the story. To my surprise, it's related to the 1878 Morgan, which is a coin in my hand-me-down collection! The bent arrow has to do with the "1878 with '78 reverse vs. '79 reverse," another topic I had planned to read up on (because it concerns a coin I have). So after all this, I wanted to send him a note of thanks to surprise him. Unfortunately, I don't think he's around anymore... And that got me to thinking about how some of the information posted by the seniors here (or even a 15-year old on the 2021 Morgan) could end up being helpful 10 or 20 years from now. Here's my Morgan. And thanks to @Clinker, I now know it's an 1878 with a '78 reverse.
If you click on his article, he mentioned that there are 5 types of 1878. I wanted to ask him about that because I counted only four.
Doug's post on Clinker GDJMSP Numismatist Moderator The title of this section explains why it is here. Once a week, I will continue to add another one of Clinker's many Trivia posts. But should any readers wish to see more of Clinker's posts it's quite simple for you to do so. Just go to the Coin Chat section. Click on the button at the top that says - Search Forum. Then click on Advanced Search. Once that window opens type the word - trivia - into the Keyword(s) box. Then type - Clinker - into the User Name box. Then click on the - Search Now - button. That's all there is to it. RIP my friend knowledge ..... share it GDJMSP, Jul 8, 2013
Yes, that man was so well versed that he is memorialized with a section here on the site. I hate that he was gone when I got here. I often wonder why we are so negative towards older threads here. I have spent some time perusing old CT threads and we have had some seriously well versed numismatists posting here over the years. There is some great info hidden in some of these old threads.
I noticed just last night that there's a collection of all his educational posts in the Resources section. He wrote plainly and with humility.
Somewhere in the posts I made about Clinker, and it's been so long now that I can't recall exactly where, I explained something about Clinker that almost nobody but me knew. The entire time he was a member, Clinker was completely disabled, disabled to the point that he was bedridden and only had the use of 1 finger, just one. And every word he ever typed, every long post he ever made on this forum, along with all the searching he had to do, pics he had to post, and everything else goes along with it - he did with 1 finger. It sometimes took him weeks of very hard work for him to make a single post. And yet he made lots of them, day after day week after week. All by themselves all the educational posts Clinker made make him worthy of being memorialized on this forum. But when you add what I explained above, a whole new level of understanding is opened up.