1887o Morgan $ Grade Opinions

I always wondered why some coins -- on both Morgans and Saints -- had "soft" strike years and various other differences year-to-year. You would think that automated presses using hundreds of tons (?) would vary only minutely year-to-year.

 

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Steam driven equipment. Adjustments made by hand. And trying to get the most production out of dies including using badly worn dies

 

I am surprised too, that a weak strike would cause the strands of the hair above the ear, to not become more well defined. Would this effect the grading of the coin ?

 

Oh definitely. Sharpness of hairlines, and feathers on the eagle are the first indication of how solid a strike is. This is typical on a Morgan.

 

So in the grade of a New Orleans strike Morgan, you should look at the feathers of the eagle and their crispness over the obverse and the facial features ?

 

A weak strike depending on how weak usually precludes it to 65 tops but more like 64.

The best place to tell a true weak strike is the eagles right (viewers left) talon... along with the breast feathers and center line in the laurel leaf to left of bow. And on obverse, the hair above ear and curl

 

For quite a while the New Orleans equipment was inferior to the other mints. C and D mint stuff is really hard to find nice as well.

The breast of the eagle is usually soft on them too. Wingtips, Face, Talons ect if that looks untouched its a strike issue.

 

Absolutely. Many New Orleans Morgans that are weakly struck have naked breasts--feathers are indistinct. That is one of the first areas of the coin that I look at for strike on a Morgan--fully struck breast feathers on the reverse, and how deeply and sharply the hair is struck on the obverse.

 

The New Orleans mint used Philly's old dies that they wore out first.

 

Soft strike, dull luster, and ugly spots bring this to a 62 for me.

 

There are several theories as to why the New Orleans Morgans are weakly struck from certain years (this affected the later years more than the earlier ones). The theory which I like the best has to do with the way the planchets were annealed. The mint had the same equipment as the other mints, but they annealed their planchets differently. This affected the hardness of the coin, and made it more resistant to accepting the strike.

Grading New Orleans coins is slightly challenging because they are graded on a curve. That is, you can really only compare the O mint coins with other O mints, of the same year. If a year is known for a weak strike, it won't get punished as much for it. You can never compare the strike of an O with a P - they just won't ever be the same. Old timers really don't like this market grading, but this is how the TPGs will grade them.

 

Can someone post 2 coins -- years or mints don't matter -- showing a very FIRM strike and a very SOFT strike for a Morgan (or any other big coin) ?

 

So an P strike graded the same year date which is 64 would be a 62 on an O strike ?

 

Would be the other way around. Generally the O strike would have the lower grade if it was made at the P mint

 

No, not necessarily. A MS 64 New Orleans strike may not appear as sharp as a MS 64 Philadelphia counterpart.

 

I think that's what I meant, a weaker strike on the "O" compared to the "P" ?

 

Yes

 

Here is a pretty good photographic example. I picked both of these coins off of eBay, as they looked pretty straightforward, and not using altered light to enhance them. The first one is an 1885o MS 64. It is an NGC coin. The second is an 1885P MS 64 NGC coin. The 1885o here happens to be a better than average strike from New Orleans. The 1885P is a typical early Philadelphia coin. If one looks at the reverses as pictured, the details of the feathers, eagle's breast, talons, etc are much sharper and clearer on the P mint coin. This is rather typical, and the 1885o I picked as an example is not a bad New Orleans strike, but the differences are pretty obvious. Remember, these are coins graded by the same company and are the same grade:

 

Without question, a difference, thanks for the pictures.