Good evening! I happen to pass by a pawnshop this morning and saw these two silver dollars, 1921-S Morgan and 1926-S Peace dollar coins. They were selling it for $25 a piece. Was able to get a vet discount and paid $40 for both. Looking at the condition of the coins, did I overpay? If the coins met the expected weight and pass the magnet test, are there additional ways to tell authenticity of Silver dollars? Thank you!
$25.00 each would of been too much. $20.00 each is a much better deal! Have you tried the tissue test?
Here is an CoinTalk thread concerning the tissue test https://www.cointalk.com/threads/silver-tissue-test.245035/
Mr paddyman98! Thanks for that info. I have to wait till the morning to test it though. No facial tissue at hand. I need to do a better job with taking photos. The 1921 Morgan, does it look like a cleaned coin? If you were to grade both coins, what grade would you assign for each one?
Both the coins have been cleaned, grades aren't a factor, unless a key date. You did well for 20 each.
Both coins look to have been very harshly cleaned in the past. Since this is in the 'bullion investing' forum based on that condition and the fact these are both very common dates; I may be the minority here but I'd say you did overpay. And I say it with the hopes that you learn from it and don't repeat the mistake. If you tried selling both those coins right now you'd be lucky to have a dealer offer you spot for them and some would probably offer back of spot 10-15%. This makes any premium above spot value barring a rise in value via silver spot increases a sunk cost that you'll likely never get back. Spot right now via coinflation for a Morgan/Peace silver dollar is $12.9243 So $20-12.92= $7.08 in premium cost or a 35.4% premium per coin. For example you could have gotten 2017 silver eagles via somewhere and I'll just use Apmex for an example where a single 2017 silver eagle is $21.65 (silver value $16.69) so a premium of $4.96 or 22.9% over spot. Also generally when selling eagles you can recoup at least some of the premium over spot where as that pretty much isn't happening for a harshly cleaned common date silver dollar.
Point duly noted. Thank you for sharing your opinion and insight. I have a lot of learning to do which I do enjoy. Appreciate everyone's input and comments!
Like they say, slightly overpaid, but there's worse things to buy for 20 bucks, so it's not the end of the world. They look authentic in the pictures.
