MS67 Morgans - how did they survive so nice?

dan1ecu

I’m curious as to how a Morgan dollar could survive in such a state of preservation after all that it goes through both at the mint and after it leaves the mint. I would think that being put into bags would necessarily cause scratches and bag marks. Could some of those coins have been purchased directly from the mint, even though there were no mint sets, as such? MS67 Morgans don’t seem to be rare, as I see them offered frequently at Heritage. The most common dates to be offered in MS67 seem to be 1879 and 1880. Were coins from these years kept aside and preserved for some reason?

Dan

mr1931S

Silver dollars were bagged and stored not spending much time in transit...except for CC's

The reason you see so relatively many 67's offered is their price...

There aren't that many collectors that can afford 67 dollars...so the dealers have most
of them...

These coins are very scarce and some are rare...maybe 1 out of a hundred or less dollars
of mint state dollars is MS 67 according to the grading services...

I have a few morgan dollars...MS 62,63&6464 PL's...a tiny fraction of the price of MS 67
and still very nice coins...65's are nice but not enough bang for my bucks...

FC57Coins

Well, when you consider the millions and millions that were made, it stands to reason that a few would have made it. But you're right, one of the enjoyable things about collecting is seeing one of these pristine beauties looking just like they were freshly minted!

Frank

supercoin

Mintage alone doesn't explain it -- millions of 1971-P and 1972-P clad Ikes were minted and there has yet to be a single MS67 found.

I think it's due to the generally far higher quality standards of the mint at the time -- for many dates MS67+ is the norm for the condition when they first came off the press, unlike the Ikes for example. That and the fact that huge quantities went straight from the mint to treasury vaults, where they sat untouched for decades.

Still remarkable that a heavy silver coin could be in MS67+ condition after being dumped in a bag, but I guess if there's even a 1% chance of staying in that condition that's still 10 per bag.