*SCROLL TO THE BOTTOM IF YOU JUST WANT TO VIEW THE IMAGES OF THE COIN* An unusual, and arguably fortunate, situation has lead to me owning this coin and being able to definitely authenticate it goes far beyond my novice level of expertise so I'm hoping I can get some assistance from all of you with this one. Here is the Cliff Notes story on how I came to own this coin and all the relevant information I have regarding it... I have a friend in the Midwest who specializes in estate sales who was contacted by the estranged family of a fairly wealthy individual whom had recently passed away. The family was in the process of liquidating the estate and needed someone to come in and run an estate sale or whatever else needed to be done on everything in this individuals primary residence, so it could then be made saleable. My friend negotiated a percentage split of the proceeds earned and went about logging and selling everything in the house, eventually locating a safety deposit box key that he gave to his contact person from the man's family. He found quite a lot of coins in the home as the man was clearly something of a recluse and an avid coin collector, and he was eventually contacted back by the mans family whom wished to meet up with him again to give him even more coins that they had eventually been able to obtain from the man's safety deposit box. He was told by the man's family upon meeting them to take possession of the coins they got from the safety deposit box that the bank employee that assisted them with the retrieval of the contents of the box had informed them that the box had not been accessed in nearly 30 years. My friend doesn't collect coins and had confessed to me that this is only the 3rd time he has ever found a coin collection of any potential value since he began his current profession and the other two times he was able to get them liquidated via auctions. The family of this individual apparently had some of the coins looked at before they had delivered them to my friend and had mentioned to him that the consensus was that while there definitely appeared to be some valuable coins, there was also some coins that were pretty clearly not authentic and that given the amount of coins the family had claimed they had found (they had only brought a small amount of them to have inspected), it would likely be very time consuming and costly to go through them all and have every potentially valuable coin authenticated and graded so it could then be sold accordingly at auction or whatever as it was clear this individual had been something of a hoarder when it came to his coins, purchasing anything that caught his eye with little to no apparent attention paid to the authenticity of what he was buying. So despite knowing that it was likely that at least some of the coins this man had acquired throughout his lifetime could be extremely valuable, his family told my friend they just wanted everything sold as quickly as possible and that he should just get whatever he could for them and if something of significant value slipped through both of their fingers so be it, they weren't exactly financially burdened as it was, and this entire situation was causing them all significant stress, so it was their desire to just wash their hands of it all and make whatever they could off of it as quickly as it could be liquidated. Unfortunately, my work schedule did not allow for me to accept an invitation from my friend to fly out there and assist him with all this, but the potential for finding something amazing was definitely there and I ended negotiating for the purchase of around 50 morgan dollars that I selected from a few poor quality photos my friend had snapped and sent me of a several hundred of them. To my dismay, nearly all the key dated Morgans I ended purchasing ended up being pretty clearly counterfeit once I ended up weighing them. On the plus side, all, except possibly one, of the non-key date coins ended up being authentic and I have since sold a majority of them to a coin dealer in Las Vegas who said at the time of sale that they were definitely real. That sale alone ended up more then covering my cost for all the coins I bought, and that was despite me only receiving 2/3 of them at the time. This was because when my friend had shipped me the coins, he had done so in 3 small packages that he had shipped out at the exact same time from his local post office. I then received the first of them 2 days later, the second 2 days after that, and the 3rd package was lost in transit. I made multiple inquiries to no avail with the post office and was eventually resigned to acceptance of defeat when it came to the possibility of me ever receiving the remaining coins I had purchased. Out of the blue last week, after nearly a month and a half had passed since my friend first shipped me the coins, I received a text message from him that read: "You aren't going to be believe this but I just tried tracking the package I sent you that was lost and it appears it was located a few days ago and it's currently listed as "Out for delivery"... And It's from that final package, that had the look of having been to hell in back when it arrived in my mailbox, that I found this coin, which unlike pretty much all the other key dated coins I had ended up buying that had all ended up being clearly counterfeit by virtue of them all weighing 2 or more grams less then they were supposed too, this coin hits the scales at 26.62 G. I know they have fakes that weigh the correct weight these days but also keep in mind that this coin has unquestionably been sitting in a safety deposit box for almost 30 years now, so it would of had to of had time to of been created by some bad actor and then sold to the individual who passed away, and then placed in his safety deposit box back then in order for it exist in the first place. This would place it in existence well before the advent of the modern "Superfake" coins that plague the hobby these days, and as far as my research has been able to determine, if it were to prove to be inauthentic, given the other known facts about it, it would most likely have to be an authentic, but dramatically less valuable coin from the same year that was minted at a different mint and then doctored accordingly, so I am including with my photos a close up view taken from my microscope of the mintmark because I don't know how you would determine that or not, but I can't see anything that looks obviously incorrect or suspicious. There also are a few other interesting details about this coin that I've discovered that seem to lend themselves favorably towards its authenticity, specifically because they are details that are indeed present on some authentic coins, and because they would be both superfluous and counterproductive for anyone to consider including them on a counterfeit coin. The first of these details is that there are some faint lines that mark both sides of the coin in the fields, but predominantly the obverse, that I initially mistook for the hallmarks of the coin receiving a light cleaning for some well-intentioned saboteur at some unfortunate moment during the span of its lifetime, but closer inspection of the lines in question with my microscope yielded some surprising results... The lines themselves appear to actually be raised up from the surface of the coin, as opposed to scratched down into it, and they all appear to stop or go underneath any objects on the surface of the coin that they intersect with. I have included a couple closeup images from my microscope that shows what I am talking about but from what I have been able to determine from my research, these details are consistent with that of die file lines, as opposed to the hair line scratches commonly found on cleaned or doctored coins. The other detail that appears to support the possibility of this coin being authentic is the date. When I initially looked at it, in comparison to images of other known, but unquestionably authentic coins, from that same year and mint, I was initially dismayed to see that my date appears to be just a little too bulky or fat then it is supposed to be, with this most noticeable in the trianglular gap that is supposed to be removed from the middle of the number "4". Closer inspection of these details revealed the culprit however, as I realized that the reason the date appears this way on mine is actually because there is slight doubling in it or it is a slight OMM. With all these factors seemingly accounted for, I turn to you all for help now because I am far to big of a cynic to actually allow myself to place any stock into the possiblity of this coin being authentic, but the skeptic in me is unusually quiet right now so I find myself in unfamiliar territory. Any feedback you can offer will be appreciated and keep in mind that I stubbornly cling to the belief for my own safety and sanity that this coin has to be counterfeit somehow, so you will do little more then return to me my security blanket if you have to break the news to me that it is indeed fake somehow, I just would like to know why so I can avoid wasting as much of my time on coins like this in the future. The coin has full luster and I will be going later this week to a coin dealer in town that has an XRF scanner to further assist me with coming to a determination regarding its authenticity, I will update you with the results once I do so if no clear determination has been come to by then. I should also mention that there has been several valuable coins that came from this estate that have been confirmed to be authentic according to my friend. (I apologize for making such a lengthy post, I just wanted to make sure I provided you with all the information needed to assist me with making an accurate determination of this coins authenticity.) <a href="https://ibb.co/kcQfp2C"><img src="https://i.ibb.co/kcQfp2C/received-3377894722527349.jpg" alt="received-3377894722527349" border="0"></a> <a href="https://ibb.co/ynK7dfg"><img src="https://i.ibb.co/ynK7dfg/received-780931046615323.jpg" alt="received-780931046615323" border="0"></a> <a href="https://ibb.co/LS7bhQg"><img src="https://i.ibb.co/LS7bhQg/received-238008432225416.jpg" alt="received-238008432225416" border="0"></a> <a href="https://ibb.co/rcqmnmp"><img src="https://i.ibb.co/rcqmnmp/received-929431864784991.jpg" alt="received-929431864784991" border="0"></a> <a href="https://ibb.co/thp0KsR"><img src="https://i.ibb.co/thp0KsR/received-1603116530153001.jpg" alt="received-1603116530153001" border="0"></a> <a href="https://ibb.co/yXJ9fvh"><img src="https://i.ibb.co/yXJ9fvh/received-554863833449953.jpg" alt="received-554863833449953" border="0"></a> <a href="https://ibb.co/CQVHn5N"><img src="https://i.ibb.co/CQVHn5N/received-126291690431285.jpg" alt="received-126291690431285" border="0"></a> <a href="https://ibb.co/5K6hsjp"><img src="https://i.ibb.co/5K6hsjp/received-914446793094380.jpg" alt="received-914446793094380" border="0"></a> <a href="https://ibb.co/9wnfWdV"><img src="https://i.ibb.co/9wnfWdV/received-223327743640789.jpg" alt="received-223327743640789" border="0"></a> <a href="https://ibb.co/prspGHf"><img src="https://i.ibb.co/prspGHf/received-974498426881194.jpg" alt="received-974498426881194" border="0"></a> <a href="https://ibb.co/p0dVn51"><img src="https://i.ibb.co/p0dVn51/received-786130429345704.jpg" alt="received-786130429345704" border="0"></a> <a href="https://ibb.co/nPqydg7"><img src="https://i.ibb.co/nPqydg7/received-1308914473085263.jpg" alt="received-1308914473085263" border="0"></a> <a href="https://ibb.co/d4xKSHC"><img src="https://i.ibb.co/d4xKSHC/received-675166304377373.jpg" alt="received-675166304377373" border="0"></a> <a href="https://ibb.co/mtPqpsL"><img src="https://i.ibb.co/mtPqpsL/received-1387381848722834.jpg" alt="received-1387381848722834" border="0"></a> <a href="https://ibb.co/zmgrLL2"><img src="https://i.ibb.co/zmgrLL2/received-1004475587229480.jpg" alt="received-1004475587229480" border="0"></a> <a href="https://ibb.co/CVS2DB5"><img src="https://i.ibb.co/CVS2DB5/received-539604591450633.jpg" alt="received-539604591450633" border="0"></a> <a href="https://ibb.co/wBrwq2n"><img src="https://i.ibb.co/wBrwq2n/IMG-20230424-052659468.jpg" alt="IMG-20230424-052659468" border="0"></a> <a href="https://ibb.co/7Q67wHt"><img src="https://i.ibb.co/7Q67wHt/IMG-20230424-052443088.jpg" alt="IMG-20230424-052443088" border="0"></a> <a href="https://ibb.co/S5k67tK"><img src="https://i.ibb.co/S5k67tK/IMG-20230424-052343181.jpg" alt="IMG-20230424-052343181" border="0"></a>
Can one of the moderators please assist me with removing this post so I can correct the issue with the image links and repost.
I have a very similar story that I have passed on over the years, but in a heck of a lot less words: I saw an ad in the for sale section of the newspaper, for an old Chevy for sale for $750.00. I went to look at it. It was in a Barn and was covered with a Tarp. I pulled the tarp off, and underneath was a 66 Corvette that was brand new. In the glove box, there was a letter signed by a Pvt. Andrew Malone explaining he bought the car while in the Army and if somebody bought the car, it meant he did not survive. Over the years, somehow somebody heard about the story and turned into a song in, I think, 2000 or 2001. Amazing, huh?
It does not look authentic to me. The fonts look slightly off. Everything looks slightly off. I would also say the obverse looks cleaned.
I think it looks off. To me the hair over the forehead looks flat compared to the rest of the obverse detail.
It is definitely fake. Hard pass on that coin. Only buy better date Morgans certified, as you do not know the series well enough.
To address this point, the timeline doesn't matter that much. The 1896-O, 1900-O, and 1902-O "Micro O" Morgan dollars were produced in the early 1900s, VAMed and slabbed by the TPGs, and not deemed to be fakes until 2005. https://www.pcgs.com/news/pcgs-announces-contemporary-counterfeit-status-of-1896-o-1900-o
Here’s a tip. If you want an answer to your question, write a short paragraph, naming the coin in question up front and post a picture of it if you can. That is the effective way to get responses.
