A friend brought me this Morgan dollar (someone wanting to sell him a roll of them). He had questions about authenticity. Coin looks ok but under magnification it looks like some raised metal under eagle tail feathers and the tail feathers don't look sharp like other Morgans I have. Again, like some extra metal there. Having trouble getting this to show on photo. To make matters more confusing, I took it to refiner today. He scanned twice and said it is showing 92.2% silver. Weight is 26.7 on my scale. The 9 looks a little funny to me. Does anyone see something that throws up a red flag? Thanks for letting me part of the group and thanks in advance for your help.
Could just be the photos, but I believe I see casting bubbles around the date, indicating it is a cast fake, but I'm not expert in this matter, just giving you my opinion. Hopefully, other knowledgeable members will chime in.
Caution him about not buying a whole roll of them (don't do it). I do not know this coin, but it might be fake. I agree that 9 looks weird. Wait for the Morgan experts opinions...
Looks harshly cleaned, a lot of times counterfeiters will do that to disguise the fact that it is a counterfeit (to hide casting bubbles, grainy surfaces and other imperfections that would give it away) I don't like it...
The die hubs used to make Morgans up until 1904 were destroyed in 1910. So new hubs had to be made when they decided to re-release Morgans in 1921. They had to reverse engineer the hubs from existing (pre-1921) coins and they are NOT the same, most notably on the eagle's breast and minor details on Liberty's head. Also the wreath berries. Having said that, though, I compared your coin to my 1921 Morgan, and you're right, the 9 in the date DOES look funky. The left side of yours looks thinner and not as full as mine. Sorry but I don't have a pic.
I only have a 1921-D Morgan Dollar in an “all mints” set. I will post photos tomorrow. Even this coin is genuine, it’s not a nice coin. It looks cleaned. I would not buy a roll from a less than perfect source. Even if the first coin is genuine, the others may not be. There is nothing rare about the 1921 Morgan Dollar. In fact it’s about as common as you can get. There are plenty of them around. There many counterfeit Morgan Dollars on the market. Be careful.
