Morgan experts please help!

oxy8890

This was an auction in question the past couple days many people expressed concern over the winning bidders wallet. Below are the links to the auction and initial thread:

Initial thread


1884-S Ebay auction

The forum has been able to get in touch with the winning bidder. The winning bidder is fully aware of the many concerns everyone had regarding the polishing/doctoring of this coin. What he really wants to know is if this is a genuine 1884-S coin?.

oldcameoproofsguy raised some legitimate concerns regarding the placing of the mint mark on this piece and if it was truly authentic. He mentioned he did not have the reference material to verify it's authenticity. I have the latest complete VAM book but am far from an expert in this field. From what I can see it appears there are a few mint marks in this date:

VAM 1 - upright and centered mintmark

VAM 2 - Mint Mark shifted left and tilted right

VAM 3 - S/S repunched MM

VAM 6 - S Mint Mark upright and set to left with loops filled

VAM 7 - Doubled Mintmark



Any help from the Morgan experts would be appreciated!

oldcameoproofsguy

I think it might look like it was an 1884-O that had the mintmark filled and then tooled into an S. Looking at several pics of 84-O and 84-S Morgans it looks like the mintmark of the auctioned coin is closer to the placement of an 84-O. Unfortunately, I don't know any of the die markers for the 84-O or if there are differences in the obverses or reverses for the 84-O vs the 84-S to see if this is the case.

Coxe

That appears to be a genuine 1884-S Morgan dollar (VAM-4). There would be no reason whatsoever to fake that date. Sliders are plentiful. However, that (to me) looks like a truly uncirculated coin......before someone whizzed the sh*t out of it. This was more commonplace twenty years ago. The coin sold was probably among the unfortunate remnants of the period. What else can they do? Continue to misrepresent them as prooflikes and try to net the next sucker to get the hot potato off of their plate.

oxy8890

My only concern is when I looked at the MM of this date it didn't seem to match up with the 5 pictures in the VAM book. Now, I will admit a couple were close but again, this is an area where I still have much to learn.

So I will defer to the experts.

cartwheel

I don't know about the VAM's, but...

-- there is something going on with the mint mark.
-- it looks whizzed to me, too.
-- I don't care for those sepia-toned photos, either; if I was selling a coin I marked at $400,000, I think I'd take some decent pictures of it.
-- If I was selling a coin I hoped to sell at $400,000, I think I'd expect to charge more than $9.99 (priority mail) to ship it.
-- Obviously, if it had any chance at all of being problem-free, it'd be in plastic now.

This buyer just paid some extremely high tuition fees for his numismatic education.

Cartwheel

Wolf359

$50 coin max, no matter the mintmark. Buyer needs to return and file a claim with Discover "not as described". I don't think the 20% restock holds up for a second when you commit fraud.

AskRaq

Adjusted pic....

MoneyLA

if the coin really is this truly valuable item, why isn't it slabbed? why didnt the seller slab it before selling it?

highly valued coins just aren't slabbed unless they are in the Smithsonian.

cheers, Alan Mendelson

BestDealsTVshow.com

Steve27

If authenticity is the only concern, then have the new owner send it to ANACS. I predict they'll slab it as authentic whizzed MS details. To bad they don't net grade anymore.