Need Advice Re the Last Few Morgans Left to Collect...
RichR
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Long story short...after 35+ years I've assembled duel sets of both regular and PL Morgans...the PL set is roughly 70% complete, while the "regular" Unc. set is 90+% complete...with every single coin graded MS60-65.
For the remaining 6 or 7 coins, I'm not ready to mortgage my house...therefore I've decided to set my grade target a bit lower for the remainders.
My question is this...how do XF45 coins "blend" into an Unc. set? I've never bought an XF coin and visual aesthetics are important to me.
Does that sound stupid/lame???
2
Comments
Off the top of my head....
Are the coins in your collection mostly blast white or do they have some toning? Whichever describes the majority of your current collection, try to pick coins that match them in that way.
Do the majority of your coins emphasize a clean cheek or an area where a strong strike is consistent? If so, match that or some other attribute if you can.
Or...don't worry about it. Just get the best coins you can to add to your collection and be happy with them. You might be able to upgrade here and there later.
I would sell the 70% complete set of PL coins and use the proceeds to complete the BU set with the best coins you can.
Unless you display your set at a show or museum nobody will know your keys are lower grades and don’t match the rest of your set . I don’t suffer from OCD (not trying to suggest you do) but my set, my coins and I’ll do as I please and when/if I sell I couldn’t care less what others think.
First, congrats on getting as far as you have! Sounds like a wonderful set.
No, it's not stupid/lame to want what you want. You do you! It's your collection. I think you should just win the lottery and buy the coins you want to match what you have! Easy-peasy!
So, I'll never have the kind of collection you do, but I'll throw my 2 cents in, anyway. I believe, for me, an XF-45 can look as good, or better than some MS Morgans. Personally, I don't care for the look of MS-60 thru MS-62 Morgans in many/most cases, unless beautifully toned. Just too many hits, scuff marks, etc. for my liking. Give me an AU-55 or AU-58 over an MS-60-62 all day. Sure, with an XF-45, you'll give up lots of, or most of, the luster of an uncirculated coin, but I honestly believe your set would look awesome, even with the few XF's in there. My suggestion: Try one. If you hate the look when it sits with the others in your set, sell it and wait until you can save enough for the coin you feel will better fit the look you want. Or, you can put the XF's in there, and upgrade at a later date. YMMV, but that's my thought. Good luck!
Here's a PCGS MS-62, from their Coin Grading Standards page:
This is an XF-45 from their Coin Grading Standards page:
Rocking my "shiny-object-syndrome"!!!
I would leave the unc. set as is, sell the PL set and begin assembling a matched set in XF45.
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Congratulations on getting this far with an MS Morgan dollar set! I, too, encountered the same problem. The tough coins, 89-CC, 92-S, 95-S, 96-S, etc. are XF-AU in my collection while everything else is MS. Most of mine are toned in some way and so I don't worry about the matched grading as much. In your case, I do agree with some of the suggestions recommending you sell the PL set to fund a few more key dates in higher AU or MS grades. Here's my recent XF45 1892-S purchase, which blends nicely with the rest of my set due to the remaining luster... Good luck the rest of the way!
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~Wayne
Here's my recent XF45 1892-S purchase, which blends nicely with the rest of my set due to the remaining luster... Good luck the rest of the way!
That's a nice XF45! Much nicer than the XF-45 earlier shown from the PCGS Coin Grading Standards page. And a HUGE price difference between your coin and UNC.
A GREAT question!
Thanks…some great advice coming in…
Re selling the PL set…truth be told…I’m totally in love with PL Morgan’s! I’d kill to have the entire set in PL..but that’s WAY beyond the realm of possibility.
I started the “traditional” UNC set as a newbie in 1981…and was only vaguely aware of the existence of PL coins for many years. However as time passed and my resources increased, I started amassing the PL set while adding to the original set. At first the GSA’s in PL…and then more…and more…all in 64/65…again for visual consistency.
And boy oh boy…I do love those mirrored fields on a Morgan.
And PS…neatly every coin I own (all series) are either white or have only some ring toning…mostly from being in Dansco albums for 20+ years before being slabbed!
This one needs a Bean on it! Nice coin!
Rocking my "shiny-object-syndrome"!!!
Anablep…that’s a great coin…and with a few more breast feathers I can imagine it easily climbing into the AU range!
It’s extremely impressive to acquire so many PL Morgans and so many others in MS. If you don’t want to sell any, I see nothing wrong with adding some high grade circulated coins to your set. It’s hard to justify going from $15K for a super nice XF45 93-S to $200K for a low-end MS one. I wouldn’t worry about matching them because if they’re all in slabs you will almost never see them all together. Obviously, if there’s a certain look you like, you can still try to emulate that, as others have mentioned. If you do want to sell some duplicates, I would keep all of the PL coins and sell the MS ones. The latter are simply much easier to find and the PL coins will work for both registry sets (if you care about that). I am a big fan of adding variety for such a large set but it sounds like you really value the consistency. I still think you can find coins which will blend in well but they may have to be in the AU range.
My Morgan collection is far less high-grade than yours, but (because so many Morgans are common and relatively inexpensive in in uncirculated grades) I do have a large number of AU58 and above Morgans.
I should also say that, of my 96 Morgans (all the holes in the Whitman album filled, except the 1893-S--too expensive in a high enough grade--and the 1894--too expensive an in any grade, and excused because it's proof only), 23 (at this point) are certified; I fill the holes with MS63 raw common Peace dollars.
So, perhaps half of the coins in my Morgan album are uncirculated; and I don't particularly like "toned" coins, so they're all white.
And I don't particularly like the looks of the XF45 examples mixed in; they're not ugly, but they're noticeably far less pretty than the higher grades. The AU50 are significantly better, and a clean AU53 makes a fine neighbor for a nice, white MS63.
And I don't mind having some fairly low-grade certified coins (e.g., VF30 1889-CC), which sit in a box; it's the raw coins in which are displayed on the same pages that catch my negative attention.
So, in my latest upgrade campaign, I'm trying to get as many as possible at least AU50 (and higher when I can).
Obviously, these are matters of personal taste, both in what constitutes a "pretty" coin, and in how you display (and look at) your certified coins.
Re a nice AU53…as my grandmother would say “I wouldn’t kick it out of bed!”
My grandmother would also say that “He can put his shoes under my bed anytime!!!”
Now that I think about it…my granny was something of a sex maniac!
@RichR... There are several interesting suggestions here for you to consider. However, it is your collection, and it must please you. Final decisions are yours to make. Please let us know what you decide... and show us your progress. Cheers, RickO
This discussion resonates with me. Financial considerations really matter if trying to collect the complete Morgan set, and its composition, if funds are limited. Wasn't what I started out to achieve but quickly realized that is what I wanted to do. I've spend ~$20K on my complete set that I started 20 years ago, and had 18 non-MS, starting with the 79CC up to the 04-S. With today's market appreciation, wouldn't be able to duplicate under $25K. I always thought the Registry should have categories capped at some different $ amounts to see sets within a price range for competition, but that is another topic.
Agree with Ricko, consider what was discussed but collect what you pleases you and where you are happy with the coin and the purchase price. Be very selective. I've got toned and blast white, VF and MS62 & don't care if they sit next to each other in the Dansco, appreciate each.
As an example, here is my VF 30 92-S I bot for $52 from a coin show. Is it the best I could afford, no, could afford an XF at best, but figured why upgrade. I love the look of circulated, unmessed with Morgans and when I look at this coin, brings a smile to my face every time. I made a good purchase after looking for a long time and could have done a lot worse. Also fits in well with my VF 93CC and 93-0.
[This discussion resonates with me. Financial considerations really matter if trying to collect the complete Morgan set, and its composition, if funds are limited. Wasn't what I started out to achieve but quickly realized that is what I wanted to do. I've spend ~$20K on my complete set that I started 20 years ago, and had 18 non-MS, starting with the 79CC up to the 04-S.]
Re cost...my collection predates my marriage by at least 15 years...and I just recently said to my wife "Thank God I started collecting early...because with current coin values being what they are, I don't think I'd start this type/grade collection today...just too much $$$.
I feel sorry for young collectors starting out now.
As for the aesthetics of the complete set...I celebrated President's Day weekend by actually laying them all out on the dining room table for the first time in more than 10 years...I should have taken some pictures before I put them back away!
Having them all side by side is what actually triggered this post.
It is fun to take them all out! Here is my (very unmatched) set in its entirety:
@david3142
I've seen your set that you shared previously and 1 thing that matches on all of them is that they are all super coins, whether toned, PL/DMPL, blast white, or an all original circulated coin. That is what matters most.
What are the 6 or 7 dates you still need?
When I faced the reality of (most likely) the same 6 or 7, my financial grade answers were not the same for all of them.
BTW, I found that some AU55 coins were spectacularly nice!
...and for that exact reason (overall appearance of the set) is why I opted for an AU Date Set at the time. I realized early on that all the easy MS-something coins wouldn't matter when it came down to buying a 93-S in VG sitting right next to them...
I've since gone in a different direction and only have a handful of Morgan Dollars left... the only other one I'll likely entertain adding to the collection is a DMPL in MS64 or 65 for the Box-of-20...
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I had a complete registry NGC & PCGS set of Morgan’s. Sold everything except the 40 PL/DMPL in MS 64, key dates, and CC dates.
[I had a complete registry NGC & PCGS set of Morgan’s. Sold everything except the 40 PL/DMPL in MS 64, key dates, and CC dates.]
Question for the audience...why are there a decent amount of PL/DMPL Morgans...but so few PL Peace dollars??? Were the dies treated differently? Was the minting equipment different?
In fact, all the other denominations at the time were still producing "PL" coins...but the Peace dollars...not so much?
Thanks so much for the kind words!
Its definitely more difficult, but you absolutely can find XF or AU coins that will look nice next to your MS coins. Im down to 1 left to upgrade to have a reasonably visually matched set.....but its taken several years to get there.
David3142...that really is a nice set...well done!
Coin looks like AU. Don’t understand the lower grade.
[Coin looks like AU. Don’t understand the lower grade.]
It really does, doesn't it? That is a pretty coin.
The cynical side of me is that some graders knowing that they're examining a "key" coin in a series...sometimes grade a little harder than if the same coin was a run of the mill date.
From my past readings on the subject of why PL Morgan and not Peace, much of it was due to what they termed basining of the Morgan die. Just looked up the term basining again and - Process of polishing the field of the die prior to the dies first usage with a slowly revolving dish shaped zinc lap. The polishing from a fine compound and water on the lap. This process was/is believed to have been dropped for the Peace dollar (and maybe the 1921 Morgan since so few of these but did not find that info.). The quantity of PL Morgans from the initial strikings I have seen estimates varied from 200 to 2000. Don't know and might depend on just how strong a PL or polished die there was initially as it wears with strikings. You can get additional PL's if the dies were subsequently sufficiently polished during usage due to clashes and stuff. Any more and I would need to go find the information again.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=wwmUMvhy-lY - Pink Me And Bobby McGee
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https://youtube.com/watch?v=D0FPxuQv2ns - Ruby Starr (from 'Go Jim Dandy') Maybe I'm Amazed
RLJ 1958 - 2023
lilolme...thanks for that.
Me thinks that PL Peace dollars would have been a cool variety to collect!
AU coins with white surfaces might fit in better, but if you are not displaying them, it's strictly up to you. If you can accept the lower grades, that's all that matters.
The AU coins can be wicked expensive too. When I was a dealer, I sold an NGC certified AU graded 1893-S for around $20,000. It would have fit in perfectly with an "all white" Mint State set. This was 20+ years ago.
Just briefed through your thread and see there are some varying opinions. This makes sense for at least two reasons. First not everyone will see two (or more) coins the same. We focus on different things. Second, there is a difference in the tolerance of the differences in the coins as seen. That is one might not like an overall golden tan toning or a below average soft strike and another sees it as okay.
A suggestion - obtain a high XF or low AU common date (least expense) and bring it home. Then you can compare it to the ones you have, set them up and down and around, and determine how you feel about it. Try to get one as close to what you think you might want for the missing dates.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=wwmUMvhy-lY - Pink Me And Bobby McGee
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https://youtube.com/watch?v=D0FPxuQv2ns - Ruby Starr (from 'Go Jim Dandy') Maybe I'm Amazed
RLJ 1958 - 2023
Me thinks that you had best be careful with such coins. It's not in the nature of most Peace Dollars to be P-L. They may have been "helped."
It would be a fan of consolidating your two current sets into one, choosing the best example between the two duplicates you have, selling off the extras and using those funds to buy as high a grade as you can afford. There is nothing wrong with mixing PL, DMPL and regular MS coins together in a single set.
[It would be a fan of consolidating your two current sets into one, choosing the best example between the two duplicates you have, selling off the extras and using those funds to buy as high a grade as you can afford. There is nothing wrong with mixing PL, DMPL and regular MS coins together in a single set.]
Did I mention that my grandfather never sold a coin...passed to my dad...
Did I mention that my dad never sold a coin...passed to me...
Have I mentioned that I've never sold a coin...passed to..........?
You see a trend here?
But in all seriousness...I'm blessed with [potential] adequate resources...but when the numbers start to get too big...you think twice.
I always thought the Registry should have categories capped at some different $ amounts to see sets within a price range for competition, but that is another topic.
I have thought the same thing. It would be fun to have competitions to put together sets based on not spending more than a targeted amount.
So I'm not the only one who thought this. When I had about 90% of Morgans in PCGS and NGC slabs in my collection I was about to start a registry, But looking at others, I decided too much effort when I'm near the bottom of the Registry. Thought it would have been great to have a few $ thresholds for the Morgan Registry ($30K or 50K, 100K, & the ultimate unlimited $ value). Then I would have taken the time for pics and hours of loading data to see where my set compared to others in that $ range.
Then deciding whether to spend X on this key date vs those semi-key dates, or more MS65 widgets, that would have required decisions based on the limit of the dollars to be spent. Would have been more exciting for me, and could I have been near the top. Obviously would require PCGS more effort to moderate the computed values, but figure IT computing can achieve if coded correctly.
Curious how you think this could be controlled? So if the amount is 20K and that amount would get you a nice set of MS64 of whatever coin in todays market, but lets say that I have that set in MS65 for less than the 20K limit as I bought the coins in the early 2000's. Would that be fair, and what about as time moves on and the market prices move up, in twenty years 20K might only buy half the set, how do you continue to keep it "fair". The resources needed to monitor and control a set composition like this is significant. Just a couple of several situations that I see as stumbling blocks to a set like this.
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[I have thought the same thing. It would be fun to have competitions to put together sets based on not spending more than a targeted amount.]
Cynical me again...one might think that registries were created, at least in part, to prompt you to spend more and more...and to buy and buy...
But yes, spending "plateaus" would be interesting...or maybe set groupings that exclude some of the more stratospheric coins.
A well-chosen, strong, XF 45 would look quite nice next to low to mid-grade MS coins.
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My Full Walker Registry Set (1916-1947):
https://www.ngccoin.com/registry/competitive-sets/16292/
I wouldn't see this as a competition; but, more as an opportunity to see the mix of grades other collectors used, given the dollar limitation, to put together their sets. The data shared would include when they bought their coins. However, I wouldn't include their sources. : )
On the dollar limit set, I also don't see how to control it. Even if PCGS price guide is used, then the price guide goes up and then sets are possibly over the limit.
If one is wanting to show their set or random coins, then there is the digital album and the showcases with categories.
https://www.pcgs.com/setregistry/digitalalbums
https://www.pcgs.com/setregistry/showcase-categories/105
https://youtube.com/watch?v=wwmUMvhy-lY - Pink Me And Bobby McGee
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https://youtube.com/watch?v=D0FPxuQv2ns - Ruby Starr (from 'Go Jim Dandy') Maybe I'm Amazed
RLJ 1958 - 2023
It wouldn't be based on the current value of the set, but on how much one spent which could be more or less than the price guides.
I understand what's your Saying. My Morgan collection is more of the VF to circulated variety so it would be easier to upgrade which I am currently working on. However, I'm missing the 5 hardest Morgan's to find and no matter what condition I could find these morgans in, I could never afford them. Basically I've just relegated myself to trying to Put together the coins that I can afford. However, I think I'm going to just concentrate on a very high grade level on my Peace dollar Collection which would be easier and more affordable. Good luck with your challenge and I hope you succeed.
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This is why I abandoned my Morgan set and moved onto Type.
Get the big dates in AU55 if you can, at a minimum. You can get some nice 55's these days.
"It's like God, Family, Country, except Sticker, Plastic, Coin."
I agree the die polishing is a major factor on PL peace dollars, but the following factors may have contributed:
1) The dies on peace dollars often went 500K coins.
2) The design.
3) The mint only created Proof peace dollars in 1921 and 1922, and less than 100 proofs were minted.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with buying lower grade key dates/mints. There are some very attractive XF/AU Morgans out there. Buy what you can afford, and maybe upgrade later if you come across a better coin. I have two MS62's in my registry V nickel set, the rest of which are all MS64. I bought the two MS62's because I liked the look of them. I will likely replace them for the registry set eventually, but until then, I am perfectly happy having them.
Dwayne F. Sessom
Ebay ID: V-Nickel-Coins
I was addressing the price guide method of value a the time. But I don't see how this would be good either over time with price variations and when the price guide price is applicable.
However, one can go to the below and suggest sets to be included. Who knows maybe it will show up.
https://www.pcgs.com/setregistry/setrequests
https://youtube.com/watch?v=wwmUMvhy-lY - Pink Me And Bobby McGee
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https://youtube.com/watch?v=D0FPxuQv2ns - Ruby Starr (from 'Go Jim Dandy') Maybe I'm Amazed
RLJ 1958 - 2023
In one of his books about Morgans, Dave Bowers gives an optimal collector grade. You might try looking at that.
Highfill had something similar in his book and unfortunately my collection, & what I could afford, was all sub-optimal. But I enjoy it immensely and know for certain coins & their grade, and price paid, made some great deals.