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Message:: [QUOTE="Insider, post: 2539960, member: 24314"]Thanks for posting your presentation!  It is now in my favorites and I will read it later.  I have seen three Uncirculated 1896-"Micro O" dollars over the years. A little more history on these fakes.  The name of the authenticator and Morgan dollar experts is withheld: Decades ago counterfeit 1896-P Morgan's were detected at INSAB.  Later, the ANACS authenticators also detected these and published an article in the Numismatist.  The column is also in the Counterfeit Detection Reprint.   The surface of these coins was microscopically granular and the relief was mushy.  All coins seen were AU-UNC.   The first 1896 "Micro-O" counterfeit detected at a TPGS was sent to PCI in TN.  The coin was Uncirculated.  Microscopically, it was just as the 96-P so the same authenticator who detected the 1896-P's years earlier called the coin counterfeit!  Nevertheless, the coin was sent to a Morgan dollar expert who disagreed.  The coin went out of PCI as genuine in a "Signature" slab from that "expert." When the authenticator left PCI to join another TPGS, he was able to convince NGC to stop certifying the "Micro O" counterfeits dated 1896, 1899, and 1902.  Several years later, the other TPGS followed.  There has been extensive research on the die marriages and other dates have turned up, several with large "O" reverses.  Some of this may be in the D. Carr presentation as I have not read it yet.[/QUOTE]