How common are different Morgan coins with the same die cracks on them?
MajorDuty
Posts: 1,998
I never bothered with Morgan dollars for some reason, years ago, but that changed a few years back when I picked up a raw 1886 (P). I bought it just because I thought it would make a cool pocket piece; it was probably about MS62ish at the time. I immediately noticed a couple areas of die cracks on the reverse that I thought were pretty neat at the time, carried it with me for a while, then it landed in a box with some other coins that fit no where in my collection.
Since then I’ve been buying generally New Orleans Morgans by date in between type coins. Not serious enough about them to get a complete “O” set, I picked up another 1886 because it had some really nice blue rim toning that called out to me, and it was also advertised as a VAM-4 doubled date.
I better get to the point: I compared my very first Morgan purchase with this recent purchase and was surprised to see that the die cracks on the reverse of the two coins are identical. I could not see the date doubling on the first coin as I could see on this new purchase, but it was pretty obvious that at least the reverse of these two Morgans were hit with the same die – I think that is cooler than the other side of the pillow!
My question is: how common is that for an 1886? Someone’s probably going to burst my bubble and say it is more common than 1886’s that don’t share the same cracked reverse die…..but I’ll still think it’s neat and interesting and quite a coincidence that I just happened to buy two Morgans years apart that came from the same reverse die.
Since then I’ve been buying generally New Orleans Morgans by date in between type coins. Not serious enough about them to get a complete “O” set, I picked up another 1886 because it had some really nice blue rim toning that called out to me, and it was also advertised as a VAM-4 doubled date.
I better get to the point: I compared my very first Morgan purchase with this recent purchase and was surprised to see that the die cracks on the reverse of the two coins are identical. I could not see the date doubling on the first coin as I could see on this new purchase, but it was pretty obvious that at least the reverse of these two Morgans were hit with the same die – I think that is cooler than the other side of the pillow!
My question is: how common is that for an 1886? Someone’s probably going to burst my bubble and say it is more common than 1886’s that don’t share the same cracked reverse die…..but I’ll still think it’s neat and interesting and quite a coincidence that I just happened to buy two Morgans years apart that came from the same reverse die.
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Comments
<< <i>I think the die cracks are pretty common, as far as dabbling collectiong in morgans, you may want to go with S or P's....I think the general consensus is that most O's are softly struck, and I think they are...JMO >>
Cracks are common, but I was wondering about the same cracks in the same areas on different coins purchased years apart.
I've heard about "O's" being softly struck, in general. Hey, that may make nicely struck examples worth that much more. I collect them simply because every other coin was minted in "S" or "P" and I think it's cool that my meager collection came from New Orleans. No other reason than that, really.