First of all, I am completely new to collecting (I started about midway through the summer). I got a lot of my coins years ago (around two hundred foreign coins from about fifteen different countries, all from before 1950 that I got from my grandpa), but never really got interested in it as a hobby until recently. My family has been really helpful; just about everybody has contributed something to my collection. My mom gave me a coin bank filled with silver Kennedy's and Franklin's and clad Ike's, my grandparents have given me some of their parents' Morgan and Peace dollars, and my dad has given me rolls of wheat pennies, some Indian heads, buffalo and V nickels, mercury dimes, silver Roosevelt's, and an old cigar box filled with uncirculated memorial cents. My question is, since I am trying to get accustomed to the grading scale, how would you grade these. I know they are really common dates not worth too much, but I just want to see how I am coming along. I would peg the Morgan at a low MS and the Peace dollar at AU. What do you think?
Morgan and Peace Dollars are the hardest to grade IMO. But i agree with MS for the Morgan and AU for the Peace
I'd think the Peace would be MS 63 or so but that Morgan, well I just don't see any luster i the photo. The Eagle on the Rev is flat and lacking breast feathers but the Obv seems to have a good strike and could keep it in a lower MS. Hope that helps.
Welcome to the neighborhood, Adam! There seems to be a complete absence of luster on the Morgan which leads me to believe that it may have been improperly cleaned. If that is the case, then it would not be gradable. Chris
not bad the Morgan might be a MS-63 (squeeze a 64??? idk) and the Peace is a nice MS-64 in my opinion , both neat examples
My scanner is being goofy, the Morgan actually does have some luster, this just doesn't show it well. I'll post pictures instead of scans in a little bit
I see wear on the Morgan. At most AU-58. It looks overdipped or cleaned. Peace: Wear right above the forehead in the hair so AU-58.
Here are some actually pictures (rather than scans). The lighting isn't spectacular, but I think it might show the luster a little better. Again, thanks to all for the help! By the way, I noticed that the peace dollar doesn't seem as well struck as the Morgan- Is this unusual?
p.s. while there is quite a bit of variability in strike for both issues, it is not unusual at all for peace dollars to be less well struck than their Morgan counterparts. The design of the coin was such that the Peace dollar really suffered from weak strikes, whereas the Morgan did not as much.
I was thinking AU-58 for the morgan with the scans but the photo could conceivable be either 58 or 63, hard to see wear. The peace on the other hand I have no problem calling a 64.
