How many Morgan's do you think there really is?

earlwbollinger

I was thinking about my meager Morgan collection startup. It'll get better, just waiting to see what PCGS does with some more I submitted.

Meager Morgans collection

Anyway, on one of them the 1881-S, it shows that there are something like 145,735 coins better than the one that I have. Souinds pretty spectacular to me.
So does this mean that with all the rampant upgrading that has been going on, that there is really something like maybe 25,000 or less real coins better than mine?

K6AZ

There is certainly going to be some duplication in the pop reports due to attempts at an upgrade. But when you figure the NGC report is roughly the same, you can figure on the fact that there are tens of thousands in higher grades. I have a MS65 in my set, and the pop is roughly 37,000 with 10,000 higher! The nice thing about having so many is that you can find a real nice one, even if you are only going with a 63. These were among the best Morgans struck as far as minting quality goes.

mgoodm3

There are about a zillion Morgans out there, give or take a few jillion.

numonebuyer

I think the best estimates right now are located in Comprehensive Catalog and Encyclopedia of Morgan & Peace Dollars, Fourth Edition by Leroy C. Van Allen & A. George Mallis. However, the number for each grade, much less certified grade are anybody's guess at this point. By the way, I have tried for the past two weeks to get this question (or at least a similar one) answered in the Q&A forum. I posted it in there again this week.

earlwbollinger

I know, it just had me wondering, after reading about some of the guys resubmitting a coin four-five-or more times to be graded, until they got one they liked. Sometimes with the slab, most of the time, cracked out and resubmitted.
Then you had some guys who gave up after some attempts and had their coin re-slabbed by some other grading service.

I wonder if it would overwelm the system (maybe a bad idea) to take one coin for example, have everyone submit a scan of their coin and cert number, compare to the database, and mark for deletion the ones that don't match up.
Later after a while maybe a couple of years, delete all the ones that aren't active.
Granted there are a number of people who don't use computers, photos or scans, Luddites, plus those who have squirrelled away coins in bank boxes and don't look very often, and such. I am not sure what to do about those.

DrWho

Must be a HECK of a lot em. I recall going to Vegas with my parents, circa late 50's, and Dad pumping those suckas into the slots as fast as he could. Must have ended up in the Binion hoard. I cringe, now, thinking about those Morgans being pumped into the slots. What beauties lost, what rarities lost.

K6AZ

Worse than that, some casinos in the 50s and early 60s ground the dates off of them.

coinguy89

<< <i>There are about a zillion Morgans out there, give or take a few jillion. >>



I think your about of a couple jillion.

Monstavet

I have pointed this out in some other threads, but few people seem to grasp the significance IMHO. Looking at one date/MM as an example, 1884-CC dollars: 962,000 were released in the GSA sales for this date and MM alone. Virtually all were in uncirculated condition. Something like 25,000 have been graded ( I may be a little off in this number) and that does not accont for duplicate submissions. So, there are a lot of these coins out there as yet ungraded. Sure, some have been passed over for quality reasons, but something tells me that many have not even been considered yet.

coinandcurrency242

Well, I believe their are some 90 something different ones. I would suspect less than 50 million morgans exist to this day. Lots got melted when silver jumped to 50 dollars an ounce. That made each morgan 50 dollars just for their silver content.

Dog97

It's known that the government melted about ½ of the entire mintage during WW1 & WW2 and has been estimated about ½ of the ones left have been melted during the silver booms so about 25% of the original mintage survives.

greghansen

40-50 Million from 1878-1904 plus an additional 10-15 million from 1921 is the number most recently quoted in the David Q. Bowers, 'The Official Red Book of Morgan Silver Dollars'.