Surprised by all the hate for Morgan's. I have a handful of them in my collection. If I see cases with all Morgan's I just go on to the next case. I think of it as lots of people are looking for those instead of the Barbers I am looking for.
If Morgan Dollars did not exist in the amounts they do today, I do not believe coin collecting would be as popular as it is and has been for decades.
Collection under construction: VG Barber Quarters & Halves
@savitale said:
I can't think of a coin I hate. Except for modern cents. I hate that they exist. Has anyone still alive ever purchased something for one cent? It's way past time for them to go.
As much as I hate the existence of every penny made after 1974 and what they represent and symbolize, I still enjoy collecting them. High grade small date 1974 is the very last great collectable for one cent coins but after that there are some really great copper or zinc pennies to collect. A clean '79-D or a nice '84 penny is scarce enough to be interesting.
There used to be all sorts of things for one cent. Now days a fantastic computer chip can be made for about the same cost as a penny that evaporates in circulation; four cents.
@savitale said:
I can't think of a coin I hate. Except for modern cents. I hate that they exist. Has anyone still alive ever purchased something for one cent? It's way past time for them to go.
As much as I hate the existence of every penny made after 1974 and what they represent and symbolize, I still enjoy collecting them.
Retired, bored and inside because of the flippin' cold weather
Based on watching Board behavior. Only modern coins (and Carr). Unscientific. There's a difference between hate and indifference. No element of financial gain or loss considered. One person's bored thoughts ....
If we were all the same, the world would be an incredibly boring place.
@savitale said:
I can't think of a coin I hate. Except for modern cents. I hate that they exist. Has anyone still alive ever purchased something for one cent? It's way past time for them to go.
Yes. I bribe my daughter to do lots of cleaning around the house for a few cents...
Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value. Zero. Voltaire. Ebay coinbowlllc
1974 was the year that deficit spending finally pushed the value of a one cent coin so low that it was less than worthless. It simply was a drag on the economy and the coinage system. In order to produce a cent that only cost two cents to make but had less than a penny's worth of metal they geared up to make them out of aluminum. Part of this process involved reworking the dies to coin aluminum rather than copper and the small date was born.
All three mints made small dates but all mint set coins are large dates. Nice Gem examples of the small dates are elusive and this especially applies to the "S" mint which was distributed mixed in Denver mint bags to try to reduce hoarding of the "rare" S mint.
The 'penny is now worth about $.0012 in 1974 money and costs have soared but they're still making it out of toxic zinc. Nobody knows how many have died because doctors don't normally look for zinc poisoning. A single penny can kill a mammal less than 18 pounds and pets are known to have been killed by them.
Despite the drag on the economy and the high cost in terms of dollars and pollution to make them they are still being produced by the Billions.
1974 was about the last year a sane society would have produced them. If we had switched to aluminum then they should all have been withdrawn and melted about 1978.
Now the price of zinc is apparently approaching the level at which pennies are worth more than $.01 in metal. Throwing pennies in the garbage does no good because they just6 make another one to replace it and someone4 gets a little wealthier and throws more money at lobbyists who support the manufacturers and the status quo at any cost and by any means.
'74 was when it became apparent we were jumping sharks.
@JeffersonFrog said:
1. you (op) said you'd like to see it
2. I'm a bit on the geeky side
3. Retired, bored and inside because of the flippin' cold weather
Based on watching Board behavior. Only modern coins (and Carr). Unscientific. There's a difference between hate and indifference. No element of financial gain or loss considered. One person's bored thoughts ....
Overall good chart!
I think SHQs are underrated here. I think SHQs are more like GWQs and SLQs.
Great Chart JeffersonFrog! That’s exactly what i was looking for.
So based on your chart the ratings go (for the longest love/hate bar):
#1. Dan Carr Overstrikes
#2. Morgan Dollars
#3. Sacajawea Dollars / Buffalo Nickels (tie)
Funny, i didn't even consider Dan Carr strikes when i first thought about this, some might not consider them actual coins, but totally agree, that's likely the widest range. Some totally love those and others hate w a passion. Even I own a few Dan Carr overstrikes ...
No, pcgs did not slab it, but i did get Phil Armold to take a coinfacts photo of it, which had a cert number on the photo filename. I mocked up a trueview photo based on that coinfacts cert num and phils photos.
@ricko said:
I do not 'hate' or 'dislike' any coin series... I do like some more than others... For me, coins are a hobby (one of several ), and they all interest me... I even enjoy checking pocket change - cents and all. By the way @savitale, I am still alive, and I recall purchasing penny candy... one cent, one piece. So bring me your Morgans, SBA's, Ike's and SHQ's... I will give them shelter and care. Cheers, RickO
I know that the 1970's was kind of late for penny arcades. Dorney park near Allentown, Pa. had a penny arcade until the early 1970's. You didn't even need a dollar to spend all day in the penny arcade. I loved it. Back then, pinball machines got a lot of my money. All sorts of fun machines-all 1 cent to play. There were wind up viewers with girls stripping for 1 cent per view. You would wind a handle by hand, and the pictures would go through like a slow movie and you could see each frame go by.
I would say Barbers. I hate the low grades up to fine. I like the high grades XF or better. The reason for this is that I have seen way too many ag or worse barber coins. Barbers are the easiest sets to put together in low grades and one of the toughest to put together in higher grades. Putting together XF sets of all the Barber coins (dimes, quarters and halves) in XF condition could take a very long time.
JeffersonFrog, I realize your chart was an opinion piece, but IMHO you did a nice job. I might personally knock 1 notch off the Dan Carr bar on both sides so it's not quite so extreme. Also, I don’t think Dan Carr Coins are technically a coin or a series, esp since he covers almost every single series known with his overstrikes. It's more like a genre I think.
However based on that chart (and dropping the DCarr bar) there are some cool observations:
The most extremely loved series is the Buffalo nickel (i can kind of see that based on the great obv and rev design and their accessibility). Buff nickels were easy to find in circulation in the 1960s, so most boomers remember them well in pocket change, and because they were not silver they were not pulled out and hoarded like the dimes and up.
Just behind the Buffs in terms of most loved are some great coin designs, $20 Gaudens, $10 Indian, 50c Walker, 10c Merc, and 1c Indian. Those all make sense to me as they are gorgeous to look at and bring us back to an era where there was true artistry in our coinage. I might have added in the 25c SLQ's into that group, but maybe my love of SLQ is rarer. The SLQ has such an art deco look to it and being minted for just 14 years, its easier to collect.
The least loved are State Quarters and SBA's (that makes sense), however I'm not sure I would call state quarters a series.
If we take out the DCarr's, the most hated are SBA's and State Quarters. I have to agree that the SBA is close to one of the ugliest coins ever designed. I agree that state quarters are kind of ho hum, but when they were being minted their was a lot of buzz around them and they brought in a new batch of collectors.
The least hated are the $20 Gaudens, 50c Walkers, 25c SLQs, 10c Mercs, 5c Buffs. I would agree with that selection. I might add 1c Indians to least hated as it seems like there aren't that many haters of IHCs, but i could be wrong.
Of all the modern coins being produced today, you have Lincolns, Jeffersons, and Washingtons being the most loved. I might have bumped up Lincolns 1 notch due to the large number of passionate Lincoln collectors (Wheaties), many of us "cut our teeth" on Lincoln Cent collecting when we were kids, esp with the old Whitman Folders. But that's just me! There is no right answer really.
@cladking I agree, it does make more sense to separate the silver and clad Wash & Roos series. @WingedLiberty1957 I love the SLQ too - the frequency of love on the Boards just seems lower to me. I did back the Jeffs and Wash Silver down a notch, I don't see them and SLQs as being on the same "love" scale.
Carr may indeed be a genre, but from my seat the love-hate fervor I see on the Boards is noteworthy.
I do think in five to ten years the State Quarters will see a resurgence. Maybe they become the "50 years later" version of Lincolns and Whitman blue books.
I also thought a bit about making Liberty nickels a 1 on the love scale. Lots and lots (and lots) of ugly coins, and even nice ones are boring (imo).
Incorporating the above thoughts:
If we were all the same, the world would be an incredibly boring place.
@JeffersonFrog this is a yeoman's effort to put together the chart!
I hadn't thought of it at first glance, but the point made by @WingedLiberty1957 really has merit in that the DCarr pieces don't "feel" like a series. In my opinion, it would be like including error coinage in the chart, as well. Regardless, that is trivial. I am, however, surprised that Morgan dollars show up with such a negative extreme. I've been on these boards since the 1990s and can't recall that strong a dislike for the coins. Certainly, putting together a high grade full set is next to impossible and the coins can be boring, but most collectors appear to concentrate on just buying toned pieces or buying CC GSA examples or stacking, stacking, stacking them to the moon. If the DCarr pieces are taken out then Morgans have the greatest swing, if I haven't missed anything, and that doesn't fit in my experience.
Hey, no offense to the “I gotta have some and I love them Morgan’s” crowd but good Lord that one dimensional and overly busy coin makes some of the spousal coins look good.
On the other hand, I can learn to love the one I’m with. Just not women named Morgan.
@WingedLiberty1957 said:
One candidate I can think of is Morgan Dollars. I know some people love them, they are or at least were, widely collected, but at the same time there also seems to be widespread hate. It's kind of interesting. I wonder what quality in a coin leads to extreme ranges in feelings. There might be similar feelings in a lot of moderns.
Agreed, but I would call it boredom rather than hate. Spending time with a full date set of blast white Morgan Dollars would interest me as much as going through a "monster" green box of Silver Eagles.
Then you have Morgan Sets like these, which puts them on another level. IMHO, toning is the wildcard that can make even a boring series, exciting again ...
JeffersonFrog, since you are genius with the charting software. How about doing another chart for genre's. I am not sure of all the categories, but some ideas: (some of these are clearly not mutually exclusive):
My off the cuff guess for the biggest love/hate variation would be toned coins. People either love them and go ga-ga over them or they hate them. There doesn't seem to be any in-between feelings.
“Spending time with a full date set of blast white Morgan”
If they are slabbed, I would tend to agree. In a Dansco Album, they have a certain allure.
PS: but I totally agree that it is the range of strikes, toning, and finish that adds interest to the series, plus the heft of the coins and the varied history behind them.
Comments
@Zoins... Tarnished coins are not a series... and I have found that with a 'bath', even ugly tarnish can be eliminated.
Cheers, RickO
Two words that don't go together and engender hate.
Morgans, morgans, morgans, morgans, .........
There is no escape.
"Got a flaming heart, can't get my fill"
Surprised by all the hate for Morgan's. I have a handful of them in my collection. If I see cases with all Morgan's I just go on to the next case. I think of it as lots of people are looking for those instead of the Barbers I am looking for.
If Morgan Dollars did not exist in the amounts they do today, I do not believe coin collecting would be as popular as it is and has been for decades.
As much as I hate the existence of every penny made after 1974 and what they represent and symbolize, I still enjoy collecting them. High grade small date 1974 is the very last great collectable for one cent coins but after that there are some really great copper or zinc pennies to collect. A clean '79-D or a nice '84 penny is scarce enough to be interesting.
There used to be all sorts of things for one cent. Now days a fantastic computer chip can be made for about the same cost as a penny that evaporates in circulation; four cents.
Well, I am glad no one mentioned W quarters! Just sayin'...🤣😂
What's the significance of 1974?
I know about this one, but what else happened?
Based on watching Board behavior. Only modern coins (and Carr). Unscientific. There's a difference between hate and indifference. No element of financial gain or loss considered. One person's bored thoughts ....
If we were all the same, the world would be an incredibly boring place.
Tommy
Yes. I bribe my daughter to do lots of cleaning around the house for a few cents...
Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value. Zero. Voltaire. Ebay coinbowlllc
1974 was the year that deficit spending finally pushed the value of a one cent coin so low that it was less than worthless. It simply was a drag on the economy and the coinage system. In order to produce a cent that only cost two cents to make but had less than a penny's worth of metal they geared up to make them out of aluminum. Part of this process involved reworking the dies to coin aluminum rather than copper and the small date was born.
All three mints made small dates but all mint set coins are large dates. Nice Gem examples of the small dates are elusive and this especially applies to the "S" mint which was distributed mixed in Denver mint bags to try to reduce hoarding of the "rare" S mint.
The 'penny is now worth about $.0012 in 1974 money and costs have soared but they're still making it out of toxic zinc. Nobody knows how many have died because doctors don't normally look for zinc poisoning. A single penny can kill a mammal less than 18 pounds and pets are known to have been killed by them.
Despite the drag on the economy and the high cost in terms of dollars and pollution to make them they are still being produced by the Billions.
1974 was about the last year a sane society would have produced them. If we had switched to aluminum then they should all have been withdrawn and melted about 1978.
Now the price of zinc is apparently approaching the level at which pennies are worth more than $.01 in metal. Throwing pennies in the garbage does no good because they just6 make another one to replace it and someone4 gets a little wealthier and throws more money at lobbyists who support the manufacturers and the status quo at any cost and by any means.
'74 was when it became apparent we were jumping sharks.
Nice.
Washington quarters would have a lot more "hate" and no more "love" if you divided them between silver and clad.
This applies even more to the dimes.
Overall good chart!
I think SHQs are underrated here. I think SHQs are more like GWQs and SLQs.
Coins that were never used as coins
11.5$ Southern Dollars, The little “Big Easy” set
Great Chart JeffersonFrog! That’s exactly what i was looking for.
So based on your chart the ratings go (for the longest love/hate bar):
#1. Dan Carr Overstrikes
#2. Morgan Dollars
#3. Sacajawea Dollars / Buffalo Nickels (tie)
Funny, i didn't even consider Dan Carr strikes when i first thought about this, some might not consider them actual coins, but totally agree, that's likely the widest range. Some totally love those and others hate w a passion. Even I own a few Dan Carr overstrikes ...
My Coin Blog
My Toned Lincoln Registry Set
Wow! That’s awesome PCGS slabbed it!
No, pcgs did not slab it, but i did get Phil Armold to take a coinfacts photo of it, which had a cert number on the photo filename. I mocked up a trueview photo based on that coinfacts cert num and phils photos.
My Coin Blog
My Toned Lincoln Registry Set
I know that the 1970's was kind of late for penny arcades. Dorney park near Allentown, Pa. had a penny arcade until the early 1970's. You didn't even need a dollar to spend all day in the penny arcade. I loved it. Back then, pinball machines got a lot of my money. All sorts of fun machines-all 1 cent to play. There were wind up viewers with girls stripping for 1 cent per view. You would wind a handle by hand, and the pictures would go through like a slow movie and you could see each frame go by.
I would say Barbers. I hate the low grades up to fine. I like the high grades XF or better. The reason for this is that I have seen way too many ag or worse barber coins. Barbers are the easiest sets to put together in low grades and one of the toughest to put together in higher grades. Putting together XF sets of all the Barber coins (dimes, quarters and halves) in XF condition could take a very long time.
JeffersonFrog, I realize your chart was an opinion piece, but IMHO you did a nice job. I might personally knock 1 notch off the Dan Carr bar on both sides so it's not quite so extreme. Also, I don’t think Dan Carr Coins are technically a coin or a series, esp since he covers almost every single series known with his overstrikes. It's more like a genre I think.
However based on that chart (and dropping the DCarr bar) there are some cool observations:
The most extremely loved series is the Buffalo nickel (i can kind of see that based on the great obv and rev design and their accessibility). Buff nickels were easy to find in circulation in the 1960s, so most boomers remember them well in pocket change, and because they were not silver they were not pulled out and hoarded like the dimes and up.
Just behind the Buffs in terms of most loved are some great coin designs, $20 Gaudens, $10 Indian, 50c Walker, 10c Merc, and 1c Indian. Those all make sense to me as they are gorgeous to look at and bring us back to an era where there was true artistry in our coinage. I might have added in the 25c SLQ's into that group, but maybe my love of SLQ is rarer. The SLQ has such an art deco look to it and being minted for just 14 years, its easier to collect.
The least loved are State Quarters and SBA's (that makes sense), however I'm not sure I would call state quarters a series.
If we take out the DCarr's, the most hated are SBA's and State Quarters. I have to agree that the SBA is close to one of the ugliest coins ever designed. I agree that state quarters are kind of ho hum, but when they were being minted their was a lot of buzz around them and they brought in a new batch of collectors.
The least hated are the $20 Gaudens, 50c Walkers, 25c SLQs, 10c Mercs, 5c Buffs. I would agree with that selection. I might add 1c Indians to least hated as it seems like there aren't that many haters of IHCs, but i could be wrong.
Of all the modern coins being produced today, you have Lincolns, Jeffersons, and Washingtons being the most loved. I might have bumped up Lincolns 1 notch due to the large number of passionate Lincoln collectors (Wheaties), many of us "cut our teeth" on Lincoln Cent collecting when we were kids, esp with the old Whitman Folders. But that's just me! There is no right answer really.
My Coin Blog
My Toned Lincoln Registry Set
@cladking I agree, it does make more sense to separate the silver and clad Wash & Roos series.
@WingedLiberty1957 I love the SLQ too - the frequency of love on the Boards just seems lower to me. I did back the Jeffs and Wash Silver down a notch, I don't see them and SLQs as being on the same "love" scale.
Incorporating the above thoughts:
If we were all the same, the world would be an incredibly boring place.
Tommy
@JeffersonFrog this is a yeoman's effort to put together the chart!
I hadn't thought of it at first glance, but the point made by @WingedLiberty1957 really has merit in that the DCarr pieces don't "feel" like a series. In my opinion, it would be like including error coinage in the chart, as well. Regardless, that is trivial. I am, however, surprised that Morgan dollars show up with such a negative extreme. I've been on these boards since the 1990s and can't recall that strong a dislike for the coins. Certainly, putting together a high grade full set is next to impossible and the coins can be boring, but most collectors appear to concentrate on just buying toned pieces or buying CC GSA examples or stacking, stacking, stacking them to the moon. If the DCarr pieces are taken out then Morgans have the greatest swing, if I haven't missed anything, and that doesn't fit in my experience.
In honor of the memory of Cpl. Michael E. Thompson
Hey, no offense to the “I gotta have some and I love them Morgan’s” crowd but good Lord that one dimensional and overly busy coin makes some of the spousal coins look good.
On the other hand, I can learn to love the one I’m with. Just not women named Morgan.
Agreed, but I would call it boredom rather than hate. Spending time with a full date set of blast white Morgan Dollars would interest me as much as going through a "monster" green box of Silver Eagles.
Then you have Morgan Sets like these, which puts them on another level. IMHO, toning is the wildcard that can make even a boring series, exciting again ...
My Coin Blog
My Toned Lincoln Registry Set
JeffersonFrog, since you are genius with the charting software. How about doing another chart for genre's. I am not sure of all the categories, but some ideas: (some of these are clearly not mutually exclusive):
DanCarrOverstrikes, ErrorCoins, TonedCoins, BlastWhiteCoins, MintSpecialIssue, SlabbedCoins, RawCoins, CAC'd Coins, OGH Slabs, RattlerSlabs, AncientCoins, ForeignCoins, USCoins, CommemorativeCoins, AlbumSets, CoinboardSets, RegistrySets, DoubleDies, ModernEraProofs, OlderEraProofs, LowBallCoins, CopperCoins, SilverCoins, GoldCoins, CladCoins, BusinessStrikeCoins, NonBusinessStrikeCoins
Any other suggestions?
My off the cuff guess for the biggest love/hate variation would be toned coins. People either love them and go ga-ga over them or they hate them. There doesn't seem to be any in-between feelings.
My Coin Blog
My Toned Lincoln Registry Set
I think the Barbers need to be separated into 2 groups. Circulated to death which few like and F and better which many like!
My YouTube Channel
Morgans are cool because they can vary from frost above to mirrors:
My YouTube Channel
@cameonut2011 said:
“Spending time with a full date set of blast white Morgan”
If they are slabbed, I would tend to agree. In a Dansco Album, they have a certain allure.
PS: but I totally agree that it is the range of strikes, toning, and finish that adds interest to the series, plus the heft of the coins and the varied history behind them.