Thinking about starting a morgan dollar set for my grandson what are the key dates

Many good suggestions here. My thoughts would be to buy the
key/rare dates first. They only go up in price while the common
at a much slower rate.

 

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And I'll chime in once again to disagree. Buy the expensive coins when you have more experience with the series, know what you're looking for, and know how to spot quality.

It's hard to back this up with numbers, but I have a feeling that the key/rare examples that get sold to newbies are more often problem coins or bad/unattractive-for-grade, and don't appreciate as quickly as Red Book or other price lists would indicate.

Even high-quality key dates aren't always reliable. Look at the 1903-O Morgan.

 

Buy the key dates once you understand why you're spending that kind of money on the coin. Mistakes made on expensive coins are much bigger than on inexpensive, common issues.

One thing to consider is doing a date set. Much more approachable in uncirculated, although 1895 will still leave your wallet rather bruised.

Look at pricing vs. populations to see what the best deal is, be very choosy when it comes to quality.

 

Jeff nailed it (as usually). Don’t buy big dollar coins before you know what you’re doing! A high grade or a CAC sticker doesn’t make a coin a great investment.