OK, so the Morgan Dollar has long since been my favorite of all coins. I have probably 30 of them and I think they are the most beautiful coin ever minted. There are however, some coins in this series that are nearly impossible to find in high grades despite being minted in decently high numbers. Like everything, this is a supply and demand thing. There are just so few of them left in high grade. What I am wondering is why are there so few left? For example I'll just use 2007 red book values. The 1884-S (3.2 million minted), 1886-O (10.7 million), 1896-O (4.9 million), and the 1901 (6.9 million) all were made in moderately large numbers. Not super common but not super rare. In lower grades they can be found and purchased at responsible prices. However, they are super rare in high grades...commanding about $200K each in MS65 (according to red book). I'm surprised that so few of these have survived creating such a high value. If for some reason a ton of these coins were melted down, I would expect to see high prices for all grades...but that's not how it is. My guess is, many of these coins that circulated survived and at some point there was a mass melting down of never released bags of these coins. Therefore, the government melted down all the uncirculated examples which they had locked up in some vault. Does anyone know the true story as to why these coins trend so high in high grades despite their higher mintage?
Large amounts of those coins were released for circulation. If you like morgans a nice book to have (if you don't already) is The official Red Book of Morgan Silver Dollars by Q. David Bowers
Another great book is " The Comprehensive Catalogue and Encyclopydia of U.S. Morgan and Peace Silver Dollars" it's as thorough as its name . rzage
Is this a hard book to find? The reason I ask is I looked on amazon.com and they have a used one from a seller for sale and they want $140 for it.
In hard cover it's pretty exspensive , even the soft cover is around $50 but well worth it , the one on E-BAY might be a 1st or 2nd addition . rzage
It's definately one you want in you library , especially the part on VAMS . rzage:smile:hatch::hammer:
Does anyone have an idea where a good place to track down a copy would be? This sounds like a good reference book that will serve me for a long time...if that's the case, a hardcover version is probably the way to go.
Check with the coin shops in your area. I have one that will let me look at his copy of " The Comprehensive Catalogue and Encyclopydia of U.S. Morgan and Peace Silver Dollars" to look up things. If you can't find any dealers to help you out then check with your public library. Alot of the librarys are letting you look up reference books online if you are a member. My library lets me put a hold on a book I want and then ships it to my local branch. It's very convienent. I live in the Houston area but I live 35 miles from the main library. My local library is really for kids (but is 2 miles away) so they don't have many reference books but I can order them up.
Richie is the one you seen a hardcover , if its a 1st edition it's worth $150 as a collectable , maybe he would take an offer , it was 1st published in '71 , the year I graduated H.S. WOW THAT'S AWHILE BACK !!!:whistle:rzage:smile:hatch::hammer:
Actually, I did a little more searching and this is what I found: http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0668040211/ref=dp_olp_2 http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/1880731118/ref=dp_olp_2 One more question, is this a book that has been updated over the years and therefore I should look for the most recent version or should I get any one I can find?
The answer is quite simple - the high values in higher grades is dictated by availabilty. In other words, there are only small numbers of these coins that exist in higher grades. It is supply and demand, that's all. The coin market is actually quite efficient and higher prices for given coins in given grades prove this. If there were a lot of them available, the prices would be low. When the prices are high, that tells you that there are few of them available. It's just that simple and it is known as condition rarity. As to the why there are so few that remain in higher grades it is due to several causes - widespread use in circulation of a given date/mint, melting and no saving in any numbers by collectors of the time. The variables occurred purely at random.
