1893-S vs. 1894 Morgans

Oldnewbie

Can someone explain the disparity between the 1893-S (mintage 100,000) and the 1894 (mintage 110,972.) The price of a '93-S seems extremely high compared to a '94 considering the mintage is so close, or vice versa.

Newmismatist

Only a few of th 93-Ss got released into circulation - it's believed that most got melted under the Pittman act - More of the 94Ps survived, so even though the mintage is essentially the same, there are more 1894s available.

Oldnewbie

Thanks, I had a hunch it was a melt issue.

relayer

...and the 1894-S's aren't cheap either

K6AZ

Actually, the 1894 is under rated in my opinion. There are fewer in all grades than the 93-S. The difference is more mint state 94 Morgans survive. In circulated grades, the 94 is much scarcer. They're both tough, and the only two dates missing from my set right now.

Buddyboy

I agree with Eric, though I see that recently the 1894 is gaining more appreciation. I was fortunate to buy my 1894 almost 20 years ago when I was home on leave from the Navy. I think it cost $400 then. Two years ago, when I decided to get back into collecting, I sent the coin into PCGS. It came back AU-55. I have recently seen the 1894, in that grade, quoted for around $2,500. I think I'll keep her!

KenzoT

The populations of these two from the hoard I am currently going through....

1893-s...........5
1894-p...........11

I think this should be fairly representive of the actual survival rate.
This total does not include one 1894-p, AU, with 3 or 4 DEEP scratches across her face. Guess someone got mad that they had to spend their 1894 during the depression.

dollardude

Good question, I was sort of wondering that myself. I have both coins, but in VERY circulated condition. I'm sure the only reason K6AZ doesn't have these is because he's looking for nice examples. However, even if more of the 94's survived, I still think they are undervalued.

morgannut2

K6AZ is correct once again. The only reason I have a nice example of an AU 1894-P is, believe it or not, I found two in a roll of circulated Morgans at a local estate auction locally some years ago. The 1893-S is crazy money not only due to the melt issue, but also in past promotions many AU/EF examples were cleaned and even whizzed by sleasy promoters to sell them raw as BU before cerification existed. Look at the number of altered, cleaned and net graded 1893-S Morgans in the Heritage Auction history in the VF to EF range to see what I mean. In AU however, the 1894 is still one tough bird to find nice and I was just dumb lucky to find one. I have better things to do with $65,000 than buy an AU-58 1893-S even if I could afford one.

sadysta1

Actually the 93-S is one of these rare cases where the entire mintage entered circulation, it was not melted down.

coinkat

Keep in mind there was a big difference between the West Coast and East Coast in the 1890's in terms of economic stability and wealth. San Francisco was the largest city on the West Coast at the time and was the financial center of the West. Further, 1893 was on of the worst economic years and the economy was in a severe Depression. There is no question that more Mint State examples were kept in 1894 for the 1894 P on the East Coast. The 1893-s was released and due to the tough economic times, very few survived in MS.

Even in original circulated 1893-s dollars that haven't been dipped, enhanced, cleaned or restored (or whatever the correct political terminology is this week) are not that easy to get. Many have been slabbed to insure authenticity. In light of the recent price move in the 1894 P, I am willing to bet that the population in VF30 and higher will increase.

Newmismatist

Some useful information on the web re US Silver dollars:

"The Pittman Act authorized the conversion of not exceeding 350,000,000 standard silver dollars into bullion and its sale, or use for subsidiary silver coinage, and directed purchase of domestic silver for recoinage of a like number of dollars. Under this Act, 270,232,722 standard silver dollars were converted into bullion"

"The US Mint kept careful records of all silver dollars that were minted. The Pittman Act of 1918 required that millions of ounces of silver be converted to Bullion. To comply, millions of silver dollars were melted. Records were not kept of which coins were melted, and as a result many coins with published high mintage's were very hard to find. For example the 1904 "O" mint dollar, made at New Orleans showed a large mintage of over 3.7 million coins minted, however these coins were scarce. Circulated coins sold for more than ten dollars, and uncirculated ones were rare, worth $100 or more. It was generally assumed that most 1904 "O" silver dollars had been melted in 1918.

The last year silver dollars were minted was 1935. Eventually the huge, excessive stockpile of minted silver dollars were all stored at a Federal depository in Washington DC. The only real demand for these stored coins was for the Las Vegas slot machines. In 1963 a Las Vegas casino trailer truck routinely pulled up to the Federal depository in DC and filled up with a big load of dollars. It was soon discovered many of the bags contained uncirculated 1904 "O" coins, theoretically worth more than a hundred dollars each. The word soon spread and it caused a huge run on dollars at the Federal depository. Anyone with a $1000 cash could go there and purchase a mint sealed cloth bag of silver dollars. The front pages of many newspapers typically showed people carrying off many bags of dollars in little red wagons.

The run on silver dollars continued for many months. The government agency was not concerned about "losing" all these dollars because at the time they were actually worth only one dollar. In fact, they were happy to get rid of them. The dollars had been stored in two huge rooms. This run on the dollars emptied out the first, bigger room and then they opened the back room. Someone noticed that this room contained dollars from the Carson City mint, a small mint in Nevada located near the silver mines. It was soon realized that these were, indeed, rare coins and the sale of dollars was ended. Later (1972) the government had a GSA sale of these back room Carson City coins"

Note in the early 80's when silver reached prices approaching $50/ounce, many more US Silver Dollars were melted. Some estimate that the survival rate for all US Morgan Silver dollars to be less than 20% of the total mintage, BUT some dates are excessively scarce. For example, not one authentic MS state 1895 has ever been found and it is most probable that all went into the melting pot in 1918.

AS far as the 93-S, all may have been released into circulation, but it is more likely that many went into the melting pot also as so few have survived. What is known is that between PCGS and NGC there are LESS than 60 93-Ss certified as Uncirculated, so whether all were released or some went into the melting pot, very few uncirculated examples have survived. - That's why it is the "King" of the Morgans.