My granddaughter works at a Sam’s Club. An older man who works there gifted her the Morgan dollar pictured bellowed. I see that an 1881cc is fairly scarce, so my first thought was, “Is it real?” At a glance, it looks OK to me, but I’m not a Morgan guy and don't know the tells, so I thought I should let some of the experts on this site have a look at it. What say you? (Sidenote: It didn’t sound like anything creepy. She described him as a grandfatherly figure and said he gave similar coins to a couple of other young workers.)
Upon first glance it screams 'fake' to me. There are several things about the obverse that give me pause. The CC on the rev looks off and if that's a dollar coin snap together holder the coin should fit exactly.. looks smaller but that could be the holder. I'd say have a coin shop take a look before doing anything else.
It looks fake to me. Pop it out of the capsule and weigh it, check it with a magnet, or match up a VAM to it would be the easiest ways to confirm, but it doesn't look promising. Still though, it was a nice gesture by gifting it!
Where are the scuffys? CC Morgan's were shipped by wagons. They are notorious for baggy surfaces. If you hold it up to your ear like a sea shell you may hear Mao calling you an "Imperialist running dog."
I suspect that's a silver eagle holder. Size is probably the easiest thing for a counterfeiter to get right.
Thanks to all of you who took the time to study the coin and render a verdict. As I mentioned in the OP, I'm not a Morgan guy so I'm ill-equipped to make the call myself. But I'm wondering if some of you would mind citing a few of the specific "tells" that lead you to believe it's a counterfeit ... because I'm pretty sure the first words out of my granddaughter's mouth will be, "How do you know?"
Umm, squeaky clean surfaces on a CC Morgan? It's "out of character" and IMO a red flag. Contemporary forgers during the Civil War had a similar problem while forging CSA notes---they looked too good to be real.
2 things right off the bat.. the wheat stalks in the crown/hair are wrong, the hair at the bottom is cartoonish and flat.. not right. Toss in the beak of the eagle on the reverse is also "not right" far to "rounded" and there is no gap between the left wing and neck of the eagle. All minor differences from the real coin but they add up quickly to "fake".
The first thing that struck me is the details in her curls. They look too strong. It's an odd look. Also, the coin looks too clean of hits.