Okay guys I need help here. I bought my first Morgan a few days ago at a huge garage sale/flea market type thing from an older gentleman who sells coins out of a few antique shops. I believe he used to be a dealer, based off his inventory and knowledge. Anyway I paid $33 for it out of a tube of random raw silver dollars, probably for junk silver. I graded it at G-4 to VG-8.. It kind of looked in between to me. (I'm using the ANA Grading Standards book BTW). So my question is how much variation can there be in the weight due to wear? On my scale it weighed in at 26.15g, which seems a little light to me. Also it jiggles around a bit in the Airtite I put it in, which kind of has me concerned, because I have a Peace Dollar that fits tight. The Peace is uncirculated however so that could be a factor. I can see since it's worn pretty smooth it could have some room to move, but it's diameter is what concerns me. It has enough room, (while still not much), to be able to shake and spin in the holder. It rings like silver, but I'm wondering how much different weight and size variations can be. Just looking to see if it's real. Edit: Didn't even think to check earlier...it does NOT stick to a magnet, not even a little. So that's definately good.
I may have posted this too late last night for alot of people to see. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Yes. a bag of 100 G-VG Morgan Dollars weighs less than a bag of Mint state Morgan dollars. I forget the break out of the percentage loss due to wear.
The weight of Morgans when minted was 26.73 grams, so yours would not be too light for the age, and obvious amount of wear, considering what you paid for it, which is close to melt value, .77344 x $43.01 = $33.27.
Okay I figured it was real no question, but I got concerned when I put it in the Airtite and it didn't fit snug at all. Plus I was concerned because .58g seemed like a fairly big weight difference to me. I guess I'm just not familiar with the effects different amounts of wear physically have on a coin. And I actually paid under melt for it because it was a garage sale/flea market, so no tax. Not bad for a sampler for my very first Morgan eh?
sometimes there is a little bit of room in the airtite due to the wear of the reeded edge on morgans that have been worn down a bit because of circulation....the same goes for whitman folders the BU examples have to be squeezed in tight while the worn examples pop right in..
26.73-26.15=0.58 0.57/26.73 = 2.17% loss That seems within reason for a dollar sized coin. For a dime, that would actually seem really low (meaning less loss than expected) for a low grade coin.
