I'm a little foggy about how this coin came to be. The original design had an eagle with 8 tail feathers on the reverse and it was decided to change this to 7 tail feathers as this better reflects eagle tail reality. The foggy part: instead of making new dies they made a new tail die and impressed over the old tail? I obviously need die making 101 but would appreciate the short answer.
Oh if you only knew what it would take to answer that question There are many things said and written about this subject in a great many books, articles, and coin forums. But even after many, many years, about all you can say if that the "experts" still disagree. Not only about how it happened, but why it happened, and even if it did happen
Some smart aleck critic said the number of tail feathers had to be 7 instead of 8. This was during a time when the main topic in the news was the Morgan dollar. No one liked it as it wasnt at all like "our daddy's dollar". Lots of trolls watching the mint in those days and the Morgan dollar was hated anyway as it was just a way to support the price of silver for the politician's mining buddys. Guess what? Eagles actually have from 7 to 12 feathers, either 7 or 8 could be correct. No eagle specialists like we have today to give them the straight info. So the mint director says to cut a new tail. Dies were in short supply! It was expeditious to use one of the old dies and just cut the new design over the old. It took days and weeks to hand cut, basin, polish, approve new ones. "Sorry boys, the CNC machines we ordered wont be available for another 140 years so we get to do it by hand." Simple as that. Same goes for dates over dates and mint marks over mint marks. Mints would swap dies back and forth and use up what they had. Some mints had a fully equipped die shop and others had to sent their dies to one of the other mints to be refurbished. They just did what they had to to get the job done. Congress said the US Mint had to make so many million ounces of silver coins each month so they were always behind.
Ive never really seen any disagreement about that. Its pretty well detailed and documented in old US Mint records. I believe one of the Bowers books has reprint of those records in it. The reason I recall is that it was quite a rush reading those pages and it took me right back into that wayback world. No exact reference at hand right now, sorry. Check Bowers. If you are a Morgan fancier you need the definitive references anyway. Im still trying to absorb it all. Big job for a slow thinker like me.
This makes sense since it certainly looks like a hurry up job. The political motivation behind it all is also sensible and this back story makes me an even bigger Morgan fan! Thank you!
Then you need to read more As I said, the experts disagree. If you'd like to read something written by one of those experts send me a PM with your email address and I will send it to you.
