was just looking up my only morgan 1882 0 and in coin world theres one that says gsa what does that mean im new to morgans
Prior to 1960, the Treasury held in their vaults some 150 million Morgan dollars. In the 60's, they began selling $1,000 bags at face value. Most of these were common dates, and some dates like the 1898-O, 1901-O & 1903-O, were previously considered rare until many more bags were discovered from these sales. The Treasury withheld the sale of the Carson City Morgans until the 70's when they began accepting bids for them (rather than sell them at face value.) Most of these coins were encased in government plastic by the General Services Administration, hence the nickname GSA Morgan (and Peace) Dollars. There are two types of GSA cases that were used for the CC Morgans. One has "Brilliant Uncirculated" on it, and one has "Uncirculated" on it. Any coins that had any type of toning on them could not be placed in the BU capsule. Although some non-CC GSA Morgans do exist, they are not nearly as common. Chris
In the 70 the Gov. decided to sell bags of Carson City Morgans and some other mints to the public . Well they put each one in a sealed plastic case like a big slab . Altogether there was about 3 of these sales . These sealed by the Government Morgans that were sold (auctioned) are called GSA Carson City Morgans . Just about all of these were MS and bring a slight premium . That's why they're listed separately even though they are the same coin and MM as their raw sisters .
Thank you very much for the detail to your answer. Is there a way to tell gsa or does utah have to be in its case. If the carson were with held why are there non cc gsa type. Also do you kniw if theres any varites for a 1882 o and if so how to identify thanks
When the treasury stopped handing out silver dollars for silver certificates in 1964 they had roughly 3.2 million coins left on hand. Three million of these were Carson City dollars and the rest were mixed date/mint uncirculated dollars and some mixed circulated dollars. The GSA packaged these up for sale in the early 70's with sales starting in I think 1972. Anything that was obviously circulated (and for some reason a lot of the MS 1878-CC dollars) were put in flexible pliofilm packaging. (GSA 1) These GSA numbers refer the the holder variety numbers assigned in my book. Uncirculated coins from all the mints except Carson City were put in a hard plastic holder labeled United Stated Uncirculated Silver Dollar. (GSA 2) Carson City dollars that had toning or what they felt were excessive bagmarks were put in a hard plastic holder labeled Carson City Silver Dollar (GSA 3) Untoned Carson City dollars were in holders labeled Carson City Uncirculated Silver Dollar. (GSA 4) The 1882-O GSA listing you see in the price guide refers to an 1882-O dollar in a GSA 2 holder for MS grades or GSA 1 circulated grades.
I would only add that some number of Peace dollars made their way into the soft plastic packaging as well. In the last year, I've picked up a non-CC GSA Morgan in the hard case, and a 1922 Peace in the soft pack.
