1880o Morgan dollars
Goldengirl13
Posts: 12 ✭
I inherited 20 1880o Morgan dollars in a plastic tube. How did 20 1880o Morgan’s end up in a modern tube. Did they start out together?
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Answers
Howdy and welcome to the boards.
How do twenty of anything get together? Someone put them together. We have no clue as to their prior history.
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Could we please see some of them?
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Strange question - how would anyone know?
Post some pictures if you can.
If Uncirculated they may have been together since the time they were minted or assembled later from various sources even if uncirculated. The modern tube doesn't indicate what the real story is, the look of the coins will tell.
If circulated they could have been rolled together at any point except when minted.
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Most 1880-O look like they slid around in the back of a truck hauling gravel - so if these are in nicer UNC condition you potentially have some good dollars there.
There is also an 1880/79-O overdate to look for.
I guess I was trying to figure out how they got from the mint to my tube. Were they put in bags in 1880 and then brought to a bank? Then what happened that caused 20 of them to stay together and end up in my modern tube. I’m curious about their life from start to finishing up with me. It’s interesting to therorize.
Betty White put them in tubes and distributed them throughout Florida. It was her way of saying, "Thank you for being a friend."
I was being serious.
The short answer is they got there because someone put them there. Who knows why they ended up together and who knows if they started off their lives in the same Mint bag or if they were simply mixed up and found their way into a plastic tube many decades later. Short of any other evidence, no one will know, so you are free to make up any story you like to fill in the blanks.
In honor of the memory of Cpl. Michael E. Thompson
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That is part of it. I can remember the broad stuff but forget the specifics. So thought I would do a quick lookup and post. Of course with time I will only remember the general stuff again.
See something out of place, then please correct as I tried to generalize and summarize.
The Morgan dollar kind of started with the Bland-Allison Act of 1878. This act required the production of 2 million silver dollars per month. This as I understand was due to the mining lobby and used to back the silver certificates. So much of the production was stored in vaults in bags. Prior dollar mintage for the Seated dollars was in the hundreds of thousands per year (not month). So this larger production of Morgan dollars were not necessary for commerce.
This continued with Morgan dollar mintages in the twenty to thirty plus million per year until 1890 (38 million that year) when the Sherman Act canceled the Bland act but required the purchase of a large sum of silver ($4,500,000. per month) to be to coined into silver dollars but did not set a requirement of when or per month. Production slowed in the early 1890's (appears due to economic conditions and the new act) and in 1893 the Sherman act was repealed and Morgan dollar mintage fell to a low in 1895 (under a million).
Silver started to gain again and with new elections and Act of 1898 directed that the silver purchased under the canceled Sherman act be coined into silver dollars. This silver supply ran out in 1904 and the Morgan dollar production stopped.
Then in 1918 the Pittman Act authorized not more than or up to 350 million silver dollars to be melted and used for bullion (silver bars were shipped over seas) and / or used for new silver coinage. This act resulted in about 270 million silver dollars being melted (which was under half the total Morgan mintage).
However, due to the silver lobby, this act also called for the purchase of domestic silver for coinage to replace the just melted silver dollars. The resulted in the monstrous 86 million 1921 Morgan dollar mintage and the start of the Peace dollar production. The Peace dollars continued until 1928 when the requirement of the act to replace the melted silver dollars had been achieved.
The Thomas amendment of 1933 resulted in about 7 million additional Peace dollars in 1934 and 1935. There were additional silver dollars melted under the WWII Silver Act (approximately 50 million).
In the early 1960's there was a demand for silver dollars and with the silver certificates being redeemed and a public law (88-36) it was not necessary for the Treasure to hold all the silver dollars. Thus one source states over 150 million silver dollars were released by the Treasury in the 1960's. This is when some rare dollars became not so rare.
There was also the GSA of mostly CC Morgan dollars in the first half of 1970's and then 1980.
This was not the end as some had hoarded the dollars (example Redfield estimated at 600,000) and some banks had vaults with them stored. One such was the Continental-Illinois Bank of Chicago. It states it was having financial difficulties and thus the 1500 bags of silver dollars (1,500,000. silver dollars) were sold in the early 1980's.
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So the roll of 1880 O Morgan dollars - as stated by others it can not be determined how it was put together without inside knowledge. Could have been from a bag or purchased individually. But it certainly can be seen how it could exist with the large quantities of dollars.
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To answer the last part of your query, no.
This is how coin collecting and archeology intersect. You get to make up any story you like. Most archeology stories seem to end with canabalizm. I own only 1 1880-O Morgan silver Dollar. It is an AU coin I bought from Jake's Marketplace in Chicago when I was 12. (1973)
My story is that a down on his luck river boat gambler bet his last New Orleans Dollar trying to bluff a pot with a pair of dueces. He lost and the coin made it's way to Chicago where it ended up being sold to some kid in Minnesota. James
There is no answer to this question. I could go out today and buy 50 of them, one from each state in the country, and put them in a tube. On the other hand, someone might have bought a bag in the 60s and then rolled them.
I'm not sure you realize how common that coin is. You could put together a bag of 1000 of them in very little time if you wanted
Do I understand you correctly that someone in the 60’s could have bought a bag of 1880o Morgan’s and then placed them in tubes? So 20 1880o Morgan’s in a tube is very common. I’ll take that as the most plausible explanation. Thank all of you for your comments. They are very pretty and I was happy to get them. It made me want to know more about them.
Is this a tube of uncirculated 1880-O dollars? I'd love to see a picture of that!
Collector, occasional seller
Unless they are uncirculated and display the same VAM/die characteristics, the roll was probably put together from various means by a collector in the past 50 years. If they are UNC and have the same die markers they were still put together by a collector but could have originally come from a bank wrapped roll or even a Mint bag of 1,000.
Since the 80-O is 1 of the 2 beer bucks, used once or twice, then returned to the Bank, if they are all sliders they could have come from a circulated Mint bag released in the 60's.
That is a better date and if AU or higher, you have a nice collection.
If uncirculated these are not common coins. Condition has not been established yet.
Collector, occasional seller
The Treasury hoard that was released in the early 1960’s contained some later New Orleans dollars that were previously thought to be scarce. Just for kicks and giggles, look at the 13th edition of the Red Book from 1959 frame and look at the unc values of the 1898-o, 1902-o, 1903-o and even the 1904-o. These were tough coins to find back in the day prior to the Treasury release.
Could an entire uncirculated roll of 1880-o be either bought as an entire roll or could one have been assembled in the 1962-63 time frame? The answer is yes.
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I don’t think that’s the most plausible explanation. The most plausible explanation is that someone simply accumulated the coins over a period of time. Look on eBay and you’ll find many rolls of matched date/mint mark coins.
Smitten with DBLCs.
Betty White is the most plausible explanation. In order to fill the tube of 1880-O Morgan dollars, she traveled down the road and back again.
Of course receiving them has sparked my interest. I realize two things. I know very little and it’s very interesting.
These are very common coins even in uncirculated. PCGS alone has slabbed around 10,000 of them. They are readily available raw or slabbed. It is not at all a rare date.
FWIW the Coinfacts survival estimate for MS60 or better coins is 120,000
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In honor of the memory of Cpl. Michael E. Thompson
Not sure that is accurate. Price jumps 63 and higher. An 80-O in 65 is 10X the price of an 85CC in the same grade. For that coin to be priced around $1,000 in MS64 I'd say it is one of the better dates in UNC.
They might be "common" but they should certainly not be dismissed as if it was a roll of 80 or 81 S with a graded unc population in the hundreds of thousands. Even in MS60 1880-O sells for well over $100.
Do you sell unc 1880-Os as if they are common Morgans? I doubt it.
Collector, occasional seller
It's also plausible that she threw a party and invited everyone she knew and the biggest gift was a roll of 1880-o dollars with a card attached that said "Thank you for being a friend".
Her heart was true.
Agreed. She was a pal and a confidant.
That's not what i said to the OP. Inever mentioned price. He was shocked that a roll of 20 of these would exist. I pointed out that it is very easy for someone to, even today, assemble a roll because they are "common".
FWIW I would also call SVDB's "common" - i saw a full roll of them last summer.
It is more scarce in Gem than in 63. I pulled the pop report, I'm not making up the numbers.
There are, at PCGS, 59 65/65+ and 3 66s. But there are also 1732 64/64+, 3394 63/63+, and 4159 62/62+ with another 2089 in 60/61.
Are there 120,000 total? Maybe. Are 119,000 of them 64 and lower, probably.
It's "less common" than an 81-S. But my original point was related to how hard it would be to assemble a roll of 20. NO GRADE was specified for those coins, by the way. This has now become a question of how common it is in Gem, which no one is disputing
Every single business strike Morgan is ultra common. There are condition rarities at the upper end of the grade scale.
What's the key date, 93-S? There are thousands of them surviving from a mintage of 100k. They are in demand but in no world are they scarce.
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@jmlanzaf
I hear what you are saying. What I was disputing is the 120,000 MS60 & higher grades existing statement. PCGS only slabbed ~ 12,000 UNC's. To 120,000, that's a big stretch considering the 12,000 most likely had re-grades for collectors to get that bump in price. Super common in lower grades and not so much in UNC. Since most were released to the public, having an MS63 & higher is a find that you will pay for.
@Goldengirl13 Can you please post a photo of the 20 coins out of the tube?
We are all dying to see what they look like and we could also give you a general idea of value!
No idea. That's the coin facts estimate. I wouldn't be surprised, though. There are another 10 to 12k at NGC
Funny you would make the Betty White comment. The person I inherited them from was an older woman friend! She thanked me for being a friend.
I must say I’m more confused than ever. I’ve never taken them out of the tube but have opened it and I will try to send a picture of the top coin. I looked
He can start fires with his thoughts.
Edited twelve hours later:
I’d like to see the photo—enjoyed the read.
I took a photo of the top coin. Now I have to figure out how to put it here
That didn’t work out well.
The Morgan people might add a comment.
Well, I think we can rule out them coming from a mint bag.
Looks high XF to low AU grade and authentic from photo, but would need to see closer photo of obv & rev to be sure. If all like that not a bad roll of coins. Worth more then melt.
Nonsense. They came out of a Mint bag...in 1880.
But they didn't come from the same Mint bag.
If you’ve never taken them out of the tube, how do you know they’re all 1880-O?
Smitten with DBLCs.
I was told they were all 1880o from the paperwork I got from the estate describing the things I inherited. They must have looked???
So what is the opinion of what they are? Circulated? Uncirculated. I’m still confused. I just bought a Morgan dollar book. Not that I think I have great value here but it’s very interesting. I like learning new things.
You've spent more time talking about it than it would take to just look at them.
If they all look like the top coin then they are all lightly circulated. Simply open the tube and look.
In honor of the memory of Cpl. Michael E. Thompson