Can someone please answer a Graded Morgan question?

To be truthful, I only have a few raw Morgans in my collection. Beautiful coin, no question, but not something I'm totally into right now.

However, that being said, I see graded Morgan after graded Morgan on this site, and many others. For what I see, Graded Morgans seem to be the most abundant coins sold/traded on the sites I watch.

Onto my question. I see all of these Morgans with MS or AU ratings... yet you look at the Obverse and there are giant chunks and dings on the front face, in the device fields and much more. Even with all of these 'dings', these coins are still getting MS+ grades.

How on earth can a coin with that kind of damage get a rating of MS? Is it as simple as "That's how they came out of the mint... already dinged up."??

An example I found on Google... This Morgan.. NGC graded it as a MS64. Look at all the scratches and such.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

Those are called bag marks, not caused from circulation, but from tossing around bags of Morgans in bank vaults. Most Morgans never circulated, but they took inventory of them, and some got beat up more than others

 

Those are all bag and/or contact marks ...

the short version is, after a coin is struck it bounces down a little ramp and into a giant bin with 10,000 other coins. Then they're shuffled along and thrown into a bag together, where they rattled around on trains/horse drawn carriages/whatever to their destinations, smacking and clacking against eachother the whole time.

So, a coin can be uncirculated -- meaning it was never passed from one hand to another in commerce, heck it may not have ever been touched by a human hand -- and still have a ton of those marks on it that it acquired on its journey from point A to point B.

 

What everyone is saying is correct...there is a difference between circulation wear and bag marks. The majority of the MS Morgans you see today were placed in bags and locked in vaults for many years. Dollar coins were just as popular back then as today...people didn't really use them. So, the coins got banged into each other when those bags got moved around.

Coin collectors distinguish between bag marks and circulation wear when we grade. Circulation wear actually removes some of the surface of the coin across the board...starting with the high points. Bag marks are dings on the coin's surface. This is why, especially with large dollar coins, AU58 coins normally look a lot better than MS61 coins. The MS61 coin not show any wear...but will have a ton of bag marks. The AU58 should have very clean fields but just a hint of wear. AU58s are often mistaken for MS65+ coins by novice collectors.

This is why I prefer AU58 coins in my collection. You get wonderful eye appeal for a very discounted price.

 

Agreed on the au 58 often coins in high au have more eye appeal and often cleaner fields than coins in lower ms grades this is especially true of dollars and other large size coins

 

Thank you for the clarification. I appreciate it.

I still wonder though... does anyone think that these contact marks (bag marks) take away from the overall coin condition? When I hear the term "Mint State", I always have an image in my mind of a beautiful, untouched surface with little to no pitting or marks on the coin. When I see the Morgans.... well... as my original post said... that's not the case.

 

I'll add something to the thread. The term "uncirculated" means that there is no evidence of wear and does not mean that the coin could not have been used in commerce or passed hand-to-hand. Indeed, I would venture a guess that many type coins in MS holders saw some limited time in circulation.

Of course the bag marks limit the coin's MS grade and in the case of counting machine marks (aka, wheel marks) the coin may be bagged entirely.

 

Of course they do...that's why coins with lots of bag marks have low mint state grades. The difference between a MS61 and a MS65 with Morgans is normally bag marks.

 

Thanks Camaro. That makes perfect sense! I appreciate your input!

Knowledge is power!

 

Why since I collect Morgan's among other things and I collect for eye appeal I prefer them graded ms 64 or better I find higher grade less beat up Morgan's far more appealing

 

Post deleted.

 

Uh, well, no. "Uncirculated" doesn't mean I didn't get it at the Starbucks drive-up window. It's a term of art describing the physical condition of the coin relative to wear. It just means there's no evidence of wear on the face of the coin.

 

Well I agree that a coin only needs to "have the appearance of no wear" in order to be uncirculated, I wasn't trying to imply that any and all coins that are uncirculated have never been touched; I was only attempted to put down a quick-and-dirty little summary for the OP.

I suppose I should be more specific!
Wear: The abrasion of metal from a coin's surface caused by normal handling and circulation.
Uncirculated: Term to indicate a coin that has never been in circulation, a coin without wear.

And that's where we come back to the OP, whose coins may have lots of bag/contact marks, but are still uncirculated as they have no wear.

 

I like them too, I love high grade MS Morgan's probably more than any other coin. What I meant before about the AU58 coins...is I would rather have an AU58 than a MS61...the eye appeal is much better on the 58.

Honestly, I think my least favorite Morgan's are low grade MS examples. I'd rather have a circulated example...as I think Morgan's wear very nicely.

 

The things that I look for when I pick a Morgan dollar is the cheek and obverse fields. If there are any large gashes or heavy bag marks on the cheek and in the fields those turn me off. So, the Morgan dollars I buy for myself are toned in MS-63 or MS-64 because the bag marks are usually toned over, non distracting, and I have a nice eye appealing coin that I can enjoy without having to pay the large premiums that MS-65 and higher grades have.

 

Just think of "uncirculated" as no trace of wear and you got it. It has nothing to do with where the coin has been because it's intended to be a description of the physical condition of the coin and not a description of where the coin has been because nobody grading a coin cares about where the coin has been. I don't know, does that make sense?

 

While I agree with your point...it has to do with wear, not if the coin was used in commerce for a short time. Perhaps the graders don't care about where the coin has been...I know for a lot of collectors that is what they care about. There is something special about holding someone that may have come over the Oregon Trail in a settlers pocket or Doc Holiday may have gambled away in Arizona. You never know where they have been.

But, from a grading standpoint...you are correct. They are looking for the type of wear a coin gets as it is circulated. A coin doesn't grade circulated just because it may have been used in commerce a time or two...it has to do with the physical tole the coin receives.

 

Oh my goodness. I wasn't trying to suggest that the act of being used in commerce is what distinguishes a coin from being circulated or uncirculated!

 

That's OK...it happens. One of the wonders of internet forums. Because nobody is actually speaking in person, sometimes comments are taken too literally and then people begin over discussing that. It can be interesting to see where some discussions actually end up.

 

One of the many joys of living our lives in front of computer screens, huh?