Morgan dollars with 8 tail feathers.
RogerB
Posts: 8,852 ✭✭✭✭✭
Beginning in early 1879 the US Mint received a regular supply of inquiries about silver dollars with 8 feathers in the eagle's tail rather than the usual 7 feathers. By the 1880s there were typically one or two letters per month on this subject. Even as late as 1909 Mint HQ or the Philadelphia Mint got 4 or 5 letters each year. (This is based on my observations in searching through box-after-box of letters.)
People looked at their pocket change, maybe much more than we do today.
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I don't know....Have you seen all of the "What's with this penny" posts here! There's still a lot of close examination going on.....
But probably by the less jaded amongst us, and certainly by the less informed.....
Those (now) rare doubled dies, extra leaf, speared animal coins still get found pretty quickly.
Thanks for sharing your research. Good and interesting information.
Anyone out there related to A. Floyd Scott?
Meh, no letters on finding 7/8 tail feathers? Gosh...amateurs!
I'm still trying to rationalize how the first Morgan Dollar design struck carried the 8 TF eagle, yet there is no record of Morgan having ever created a Morgan Pattern Dollar with an 8 TF eagle for review before regular production commenced in March of 1878.
"Everything is on its way to somewhere. Everything." - George Malley, Phenomenon
http://www.american-legacy-coins.com
I've always wondered that myself.
+1
POST NUBILA PHOEBUS / AFTER CLOUDS, SUN
Love for Music / Collector of Dreck
I would GUESS that Morgan had created an eagle punch with no tail feathers on it at all, which he used to start a Master Die that he then finished by hand. In doing so he filled in the space where the tail feathers went until the space was filled, and happened to create eight feathers while doing so. On his next Master Die he happened to create seven. The count was not important (as compared to say 13 stars on the obverse) to Mint officials and/or non-collectors, and in his mind both looked OK.
FWIW, when I discovered the change in the tail feathers on the Cheerios dollar patterns, I asked Mint Engraver Tom Rogers about the count. He told me that he had done some research on the subject and determined that an adult bald eagle had 12 tail feathers, and his original design (which I saw in October of 1999) did indeed have 12 tail feathers. I counted them.
However, when he altered the design prior to mass production by taking away the details in the feathers (to make them appear more white, as on a mature bald eagle) he added a recessed central spine to the central feather, making it appear to be two separate feathers, which was why I reported after the coins came out that the count had been changed from 12 to 13 feathers.
TD
Excellent info TD ! Details like yours bring abstract things like tail feathers into focus as concrete decisions and ideas by individuals. Make sure this is part of your narrative, much as you did for ANACS authentication.
There were multiple dollar designs by Morgan. These were continued past first production as he attempted to improve die life and comply with requests from Linderman and Snowden, and Pollock for small changes. The 7/8 reverses were likely made during the rush to produce silver dollars as ordered by Congress. Correspondence suggests considerable pressure on all parts of US Mints.
Pocket change was more than pocket change back in those days-from the (1st random) internet inflation calculator on the web that I found $1 in 1879 is more like 26 or 27 today.