Question on original Morgan dollars and mint bags

Does anyone have, know of or heard of anybody who has a group of Morgans either with the original mint bag or known to be from a single bag? I ask because I do have a few (no bag unfortunately), will share that story sometime soon, and just trying to see how common this is. I have also searched for just the original US Mint bags on all of the auction sites, and other than the newer bags, or the slabbed Morgans with a small bag remnant, cannot find any. If anyone has one of the original bags it would be cool to see it. Looking at photos from when they were originally stored it is easy to see how they could have eroded as the years went on.



I did come across this story from Coin World back in 2019 of a hoard of 16 bags held since 1964, but no explanation of how they were dispersed other than the higher-grade specimens were removed first, and that the others were packed into coin tubes and sent to NGC in Florida to be sold off individually (I assume?)
Hoard of 16,000 Morgan silver dollars to be graded, marketed

Would love to hear any of your stories as well!

 

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I have nothing useful to add to this, but I think I would drool over and onto a mint-sealed bag of Morgans, if I ever were to stumble upon one. I've seen some slabs listed online with pieces of said bags encased in them, but I have absolutely zero interest in a segment of threads from a bag, particularly one that I can't touch. That's like seeing an ice cream truck stopped on the other side of a busy interstate highway giving out free stuff.

 

No doubt on a sealed bag; even an opened, partial bag would be unbelievable.

I have read discussions on the slabs with the remnants, consensus was that they were just from "a" bag, not necessarily the bag the coin came from.

 

Stories? In the early 1960s I saw news reports about how people were lined up outside the Treasury in Washington to get silver dollars. The government cracked open bags. A number of previously rare dates like 1898-O, 1904-O and most especially 1903-O became much more common dates. The 1903-O went from $1,500, which was real money then, like $15,000 in today’s dollars, to $15.

 

That's well before my time (born in '79) and I envy those who were around at those GSA releases. I know very well how hard times were for some back then, even drawing similarities to the present in some ways, but from a numismatic standpoint judging by today's standards (and prices) that seemed like a Golden Age for collecting... if one could afford it.

Alas, the time is now and there's no Doctor Emmet Brown to wisk us back to that time. I've found myself wondering what the common coins must have looked like way back when they were first issued, then I find myself staring in awe at some of the pictures that lots of the folk here (yourself included) post from time to time and it makes me happy simply to look at them, knowing that an "average Joe" could have a chance at having one even if just for a short while.

 

I was a kid going through my parents’s change purses and bank rolls when I could get them. I had a very narrow interest. I bought coins for the first time from a professional dealer in 1963. My biggest purchases were a 1908-S Indian Cent in VG to Fine, which would called a VF-20 today for $35, and an 1875-P Twenty Cent Piece in VF that would still be a VF today today for $20.

I became interested in gold and eventually assembled an eight piece and then a 12 piece type set. Whatever bad purchases I made in other areas were more than off set by the gold which were all Uncs. I still own four of the coins that were in the eight piece type set. The best one in a 1901 $10 gold that is now in an NGC MS-65 holder. I bought that one from Stacks’ in New York City when I was in high school. Stacks’ graded that one “Choice Unc.”

There were not grading numbers in those days, except for those who used Sheldon’s Penny Whimsey book. I never met Sheldon, but knew a couple of people who did. I also met Walter Breen several times. He was a trip, a real old hippy. Thank goodness I was not his type.

It seems like it was a great time to buy, but things seemed expensive back then too. You must remember people thought that $100 a week was a living wage. Everything is relative.

Now I’m the “old guy” who seems to have everything. When I was young, I knew similar “old guys.” They were advanced collectors, like I am today.

 

Can you just imagine getting your hands on a bag full of 1889 CCs or 1901's, 1903Os? I doubt there were any bags of the rarer ones, I could live with the ones mentioned.

 

Okay barney. Time for bed.

 

If you did now, if they were original Mint State bags, the price would fall like they did for the formerly rare New Orleans dates in the early 1960s.

Here are some prices for Unc. Morgan Dollar from the 16th Edition of The Red Book (published 1962). NOIE There was only an "Uncirculated" price. The Sheldon numbers were not in use. Unc. prices from other sources might include "BU", "Choice Unc." (MS-63) and Gem Unc. (MS-65 or higher)

1898-O $300
1903-O $1,500, $400 in EF
1904-O $350

Current Red Book, MS-63

1898-O $85
1903-O $950
1904-O $90

Note because of inflation, $100 in 1962 is worth $1,070 today.

 

You will probably get more jealous, but in the early 1960s, I could go into my local bank and trade a paper dollar for a silver dollar. Those dollars were always common dates in VF-EF condition often from the 1880s.

A dealer I knew in the mid 1970s claimed that he searched bags of silver dollars for better dates. When he was done, he would sell the rejects from 97 cents. He said that was easier than taking them back to the bank.