1879 was the second year that the Morgan Silver Dollar was minted. There were 14,807,100 minted at the Philadelphia Mint, 2,887,000 minted at the New Orleans Mint and there were 756,000 minted at the Carson City Mint. There were some of Carson City variety that had a Capped Die which makes it worth up to $50,000 according to PCGS. The 1879 was also minted at the San Francisco Mint, one variety with the 1878 reverse (9,110,000 minted worth up to $50,000) and one with the 1879 reverse.

The 1878 Morgan Silver Dollar was the first Morgan Dollar to ever be minted. This year in the set had many different varieties. This includes the 8 tail feathers variety, the 7 tail feathers variety which have very low mintages (750,000 and 416,000). Also is the 1878 with the reverse of 1879. The 7 over 8 tail feathers variety is another. 9,774,000 were minted in San Francisco and 2,212,000 were minted in Carson City. Depending on the condition and the variety, these coins range from around $18 up to $45,000 according to PCGS.

Perhaps no coin being collected today conjures up visions of the old west like the Morgan Dollar. Minted from 1878 to 1904 and then for one more year in 1921, the changes that took place in America during the span of the Morgan Dollar are startling. And although collecting Morgan Dollars is a favorite of most collectors, the silver Morgan Dollar was not that popular of a coin and ignored by collectors for decades after its demise. It was not until the early 1960’s that collecting Morgan Dollars became popular. During this time silver was near $1.29 per ounce. At that price, the silver metal value of a silver dollar was worth a dollar. During this time many banks still had bags and rolls of silver dollars and all one needed to do was go down to the bank and ask for them. The Mint Act of April 2, 1792 provided for decimal coinage. The largest being the dollar, or 100 cents. From the first few thousand dollar coins weakly stuck in 1794 and the many more through 1873, the dollar enjoyed moderate success. Dollars were coined on and off until the Coinage Act of 1873 eliminated the dollar and put in its place a slightly larger dollar called the Trade Dollar. The Trade Dollar was produced with the intent to export it for trade with China. As such, very few made it into general circulation in the US. Meanwhile, the silver mining industry in the west had fallen on hard times. As is the case even today, industries in trouble look to the US government for help and the silver industry was no exception. An idea was put forward that the US government buy silver bullion for its own account to help support the market. Embracing this cause in the mid-1870’s was Representative Richard P. (”Silver Dick”) Bland of Missouri. Other politicians jumped on the bandwagon with the thought that a strong silver market would benefit everyone west of the Mississippi. After much discussion and debate, the Bland-Allison Act was passed on February 28th, 1878. The legislation was initially vetoed by President Rutherford B. Hayes but congress overrode the veto putting a new law in the books. The legislation dictated that the US government purchase $2,000,000 to $4,000,000 a month in silver bullion with the specific purpose to convert the silver into standard silver dollars (90% silver and 10% copper). At the time, silver was around $1.00 per ounce. At that price, the government was purchasing millions of ounces of silver each month. Back in 1876, Mint Director Henry Richard Linderman anticipated that legislation would someday be passed to create another circulating silver dollar and had Chief Engraver William Barber fiddle with a new designs. The legal tender status of the Trade Dollar had been revoked and the country was without a dollar coin. Like today though, but for different reasons, there was not a demand for a silver dollar. In 1877, it seemed like a sure thing that legislation for a new silver dollar would soon become a reality. A new design was needed and Barber, assistant engraver George T. Morgan and outside artist Anthony Paquet went into high gear producing several different designs. On February 21st, 1878, Linderman selected the design. Although he thought Barber and Morgan had high artistic taste, he selected the design with the lowest relief requiring the lowest power to strike. This of course was the design created by Morgan. The portrait was modeled after 19 year old Miss Anna Willess Williams. Morgan had previously used Miss Williams on several pattern half dollars in 1877. Several years later Charles Barber, son of William Barber, would basically copy this design for his own coin designs which later became known as the Barber Dime, Barber Quarter, and Barber Half. He also “designed” the Liberty Nickel. Just a week after the passing of the Bland-Allison Act, the first Morgan dollars were coined on March 7th, 1878. After several adjustments of the dies, the Philadelphia mint cranked out the first dollar coin. After close examination of the coin, it was rejected and sent to the melting room. The press was then adjusted and 11 more coins were produced. The last was rejected and this coin was also sent to the melting room. These first coins were struck on polished planchets, removed by hand and put in numbered envelopes with the intent to deliver the first coin to the President and the 2nd coin went to Secretary of the Treasury John Sherman and the 3rd to Linderman. After that, the press began churning out 80 dollar coins a minute. Within a few days, several other presses would come online and dies would be delivered to San Francisco, New Orleans and Carson City. As mentioned before, the purchasing power of a dollar back in the 1880’s was huge. Most transactions were completed in smaller denominations as large purchases were under a dollar. Additionally, many people were still bartering for goods (trading pigs for chickens, etc). As such, the supply of silver dollars far exceeded demand. Incredibility, with this supply, The Bland-Allison act was modified by the Sherman Silver Purchase Act which mandated the US Government purchase 4.5 million ounces of silver per month. The hitch was that these purchases were to be paid with Treasury bonds redeemable in either gold or silver. Since gold was seen as the more valued metal, most bond holders redeemed them for gold which depleted the Treasury’s gold supply which then caused a financial panic through the whole country in 1893. This led to the repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act. The result was a massive slowdown in silver dollar production for the years of 1893, 1894 and 1895. Not coincidently, these years also contain some of the most elusive key dates. Production picked back up in 1896 but it would be a few years before production went back above the 10,000,000 mark for any individual mint. In 1904, the supply of silver was exhausted and the Morgan Dollar ceased production, or so it seemed. In 1918, Congress passed the Pittman Act and recalled over 270 million silver dollars for melting. Total mintage of the entire series totaled nearly 657 million. If you subtract out the high mintage 1921 dates of 86.7 million, (these were made from the melted older dollars), around 47% of Morgans dated prior to 1921 were destroyed. These silver dollars had been sitting in Treasury vaults for years just collecting dust. The provision of the act, called for the recall of these dollars for the purpose of making new ones. So, in 1921, the Morgan dollar was revived for one more year. Barber had died four years before (February 18, 1917) and now George T Morgan was Chief Engraver who you recall designed the dollar. The Philadelphia mint made over 44 million, the highest number it had ever made, while the San Francisco mint made over 20 million, which was more dollars in one year that it had ever made. Also, this marked the only year that the Denver mint made Morgan Dollars. The New Orleans and Carson City Mints had long ago ceased operations. Later that year, the Peace Dollar would permanently replace the Morgan Dollar. With the paper dollar becoming more popular for commerce, dollar coins vanished from circulation and piled up in bank vaults. More meltings occurred due to the War Time Silver Act of 1942 and then in 1979-1980 when silver shot up to near $50 per ounce. No doubt millions of Morgans and Peace dollars were melted. Today, it is estimated that only 15-17% of all Morgan dollars produced still exist. Taking this into consideration, low mintage dates are even scarcer than their mintage would indicate making this a very desirable coin to collect.

About the Author

Keith Scott has been a collector for over 30 years and sells coins and writes Coin Collecting Articles for fun. Visit his websites for a history of US coins, metal market updates and news about your favorite coins.

The CC Silver Dollar - What You Should Know
By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Mark_Vidrow]Mark Vidrow

The CC Silver Dollar has a unique spot in history. Although every collectible coin has a unique and valuable story, the story of the CC dollar is among those that stand out. This is one coin that no collector should miss out on.

CC Coins

CC actually stands for Carson City. This is where the story of the CC silver coins began. It was in 1859 when a huge source of silver was discovered in Carson City. It was partly because of this silver source and lobbying that a mint branch was established in Carson City. Like every other mint office, the one in Carson also affixed its letter sign on the minted dollar. For Carson Cit y it was the double C.

Value of CC

A CC Silver Dollar is actually a Morgan Dollar. Like other Morgan Dollars, this one has the face of Liberty and an eagle on the reverse. What makes it unique from other silver dollars however is the double C mint mark on the reverse. It is the only American silver coin with a double letter mint mark. This unique feature is one of the main reasons why The Carson City dollar is considered valuable.

One other factor that makes it valuable is its mintage. There were some years when the Carson silver coin was minted in the millions. There were also some years though with only a few hundred thousands. It is estimated that CC silver coins do not even account for one percent of the total amount of silver dollars ever minted. The comparative rarity of a CC Silver Dollar is more than enough to make it more expensive than some other Morgan types. The 1885 Morgan CC is among the most prized because very few were minted in this year.

The quantity of Carson City Silver Dollars dropped even more during the war. Many gold coins of various types were melted at this time. There was a significant shortage of silver at this time. The Carson City silver coins that have survived to this day come from government vaults. These have been sold to the public.

Tips

A CC Silver Dollar can also have a fake counterpart. You should therefore take great care when considering a CC purchase. A CC coins should be carefully assessed like any other collectible coin. It would help if you took the time to find out the distinguishing features of a Morgan CC silver coin.

Even if you do know your coin, there is still a chance that you could get swindled. You can prevent this from happening from buying only from a reputable source. There are many online stores that specialize only in selling collectible coins like the CC dollar. Be extra careful if you plan to buy from an online auction. Check a seller’s reputation meticulously.

You should also consider coin condition. A rare CC coin could cost more than a thousand dollars. A highly defaced and worn coin however would hardly merit such a price.

A CC Silver Dollar is a unique and beautiful collector’s piece. If you aren’t careful though, you could end up with a fake.

Learn more about how to collect and profit from the rare and beautiful Carson City Silver Dollar on this web page: http://www.SilverDollarCoins.Info/carson-city-silver-dollar.html

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Mark_Vidrow http://EzineArticles.com/?The-CC-Silver-Dollar—What-You-Should-Know&id=1121669

The Top Five Morgan Silver Dollars
By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Daniel_Goevert]Daniel Goevert

Why waste everyone’s time? Let’s skip the appetizers and get to the meaty stuff right now: The Morgan silver dollars poised to increase the most in value in the years ahead are the 1895, 1892-CC, 1894, 1878-CC, and the 1883-CC. Pretty bold prediction, eh? At this point, the reader now has three options: (1) Stop reading and act upon this information, (2) Stop reading and get on with life, or (3) Continue on, evaluate the analytical approach to identify the “Top Five” Morgan dollars, and then implement a variation of (1) or (2) above. If you’ve gotten this far, we encourage you to continue on with option (3).

First, a little background info on the Morgan silver dollar…

The Morgan silver dollar is today one of the most popular of all collector coins. First minted in 1878 following the passage of the Bland-Alison Act, the new dollar was named after its designer, George T. Morgan. Political pressure by powerful silver mining companies, in a gambit to stabilize the price of their commodity at artificially high levels, created the impetus driving the legislative action. Bland-Alison led to the overproduction of silver dollars, resulting in millions of these unused “cartwheels” languishing in bank and Treasury vaults. Indeed, few coins have ever been released under more dubious circumstances than Morgan silver dollars. Minting continued until 1904, and then again for one more year in 1921, when the series finally came to a close.

For decades thereafter, Morgan dollars were largely snubbed by hobbyists. Many dates, including those in mint state condition, could be obtained for as little as $1.00. This situation shifted dramatically in 1962, when the US government began selling original 1000-piece silver dollar Treasury bags to the public at face value. Stories of rare dollar finds circulated widely, touching off a veritable Morgan mania. Within a matter of months, all but a small fraction of the federally owned coins were transferred from government vaults to private hands, consequently expanding the Morgan dollar collector base far beyond anything seen previously.

Since then, Morgan silver dollars have proudly perched themselves atop the catbird seat of the numismatic world. Their physical size, availability, beauty, and historical significance have consistently attracted herds of new buyers. Numerous boom-turned-bust cycles have come and gone, sometimes driven by pure speculative motives, but from a long-term perspective, most Morgan dollar prices have trended somewhat positive.

Unlike some controversial promoters in the past, I do not propose purchasing Morgan silver dollars simply as investment vehicles. However, for collectors hoping to satisfy their numismatic yearnings AND acquire coins destined to be worth substantially more in the future, Morgan dollars do present a few opportunities. As noted above, as a whole, Morgans have gained moderately in value over the years. The crucial challenge, then, is to identify which members of this series have enjoyed the best growth patterns in the past. The underlying logic is clear: coins that have demonstrated the strongest gains over a long period of time are the coins best positioned to show similar price advancements with the continued passage of time.

In order to measure past performance and thus visualize Morgans most likely headed toward a bullish future, I developed a systematic approach. First, I researched individual Morgan dollar retail prices as they existed in 1950, for a broad range of conditions, and entered this data on a computer spreadsheet. Moving forward in time, values from the years 1980, 1995, and 2000 were likewise recorded. Finally, estimated selling prices in 2005 were juxtaposed with counterpart data from those earlier years. Because grading terminology has evolved over the 55 year period, certain assumptions were made to progressively track price movements throughout the time spectrum (e.g. an “Uncirculated” value in 1950 is equivalent to the “MS-60” of today).

For each date and condition, compounded annual return rates were computed from 1950 to 2005. [Editorial note: compounded annual return rate is the accepted yardstick for comparing investment performance. Of course, coins do not grow at a guaranteed uniform rate, such as bonds do, but if a coin is purchased at a certain price, and that price is compared with the value of the coin at some later date, the compounded annual return rate can be calculated for the time period in between]. Return rate computations were made from 1980 to 2005, 1995 to 2005, and 2000 to 2005. For each Morgan dollar, the data was placed in tabular format.

Next, I calculated a “composite” score for each date by averaging all the compounded return rates computed for that date. I then ranked all the “composite” scores. The Morgan silver dollars with the highest scores are as follows:

Date: Score:

1895 11.37

1892-CC 10.54

1894 10.43

1878-CC 10.28

1883-CC 10.25

So, it would appear, based on past performance over a period of 55 years, the 1895 is the Morgan silver dollar with the best hope of appreciating significantly in the years ahead, followed by the 1892-CC, 1894, 1878-CC, and 1883-CC. Not surprisingly, dollars of the Carson City Mint occupy 13 of the top 16 positions, thanks to persistent collectors scrambling for bona fide artifacts of the romantic American West. On the opposite end of the rankings, Morgan silver dollars having the bleakest long term prospects include the 1898, 1899-O, 1884, and the 1888-O, followed by the 1897 coming in dead last with a score of 2.66.

Anyone whose dual objective is to acquire Morgan silver dollars with a bullish future ought to begin looking at the “Top Five” above. Purchase coins in the best condition you can afford, but be sure the coins are clean, problem-free, and CERTIFIED by a reputable grading service. Be prepared to hold for at least five years. Morgan dollars have skyrocketed in value in the last three years, so some cooling off may be in order before the next upward cycle.

If a polling firm were to survey the population of US coin collectors, it is very possible that Morgan silver dollars would win the vote as the most appealing coin in American coinage history. These beautiful coins have been the heartbeat of the hobby for many years, with no retreat in sight. Ironically, these same coins spent the better part of a century hidden away in government vaults, unseen, unwanted, and unloved. My, how times have changed!

Author Daniel J. Goevert is the webmaster of US Coin Values Advisor ( http://www.us-coin-values-advisor.com), specializing in coin value trends and listing bullish US coins. Other offerings include detailed coin collecting advice as well as an illustrated history of the United States and the US Mint.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Daniel_Goevert http://EzineArticles.com/?The-Top-Five-Morgan-Silver-Dollars&id=45480

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Thanks,

Rick