@Cuprinkor said:
In addition to the three micro O dates (96-O, 00-O, & 02-O) I did see a low grade G-VG 1901-O micro O at least 20 years ago at Long Beach. It was in the possession of Gene Sanders.
I thought that was cool.
He loaned me his collection of them for an article I wrote for COINage quite a while back.
Numismatist. 50 year member ANA. Winner of four ANA Heath Literary Awards; three Wayte and Olga Raymond Literary Awards; Numismatist of the Year Award 2009, and Lifetime Achievement Award 2020. Winner numerous NLG Literary Awards.
@Cuprinkor said:
In addition to the three micro O dates (96-O, 00-O, & 02-O) I did see a low grade G-VG 1901-O micro O at least 20 years ago at Long Beach. It was in the possession of Gene Sanders.
I thought that was cool.
That's VAM 42, the rarest by far of the micro O coins.
There is only one point in time that makes sense for these coin to be have been produced. These were most likely made in the great depression when silver bottomed out at 28 cents making the silver value of a silver dollar 22 cents. Nearly a five fold mark up less production costs.
Most of the time since 1902, silver averaged around a buck, making the margin 23% or less, not 500%.
Cheap hungry labor, cheap silver, Idle machinery, a perfect time to make some "Bucks". It would still allow 30 years for them to wear down.
While the mob and Las Vegas makes for a intriguing storyline, it was only a lonely railroad stop in 1931. The "New Deal" construction of the Hoover dam made it boom. Bugsy Siegal was not in Vegas until after WWII. The first casino, his Flamingo, was not opened until 1946.
The silver price was then capped in 1965 at $1.25-$1.29 by the government, selling from it's reserve to keep coins in circulation and avoiding a nation wide coin shortage. I remember the silver certificates being turned in for silver granules in the mid 1960's. J.P.
@KOYNGUY said:
There is only one point in time that makes sense for these coin to be have been produced. These were most likely made in the great depression when silver bottomed out at 28 cents making the silver value of a silver dollar 22 cents. Nearly a five fold mark up less production costs.
Most of the time since 1902, silver averaged around a buck, making the margin 23% or less, not 500%.
Cheap hungry labor, cheap silver, Idle machinery, a perfect time to make some "Bucks". It would still allow 30 years for them to wear down.
While the mob and Las Vegas makes for a intriguing storyline, it was only a lonely railroad stop in 1931. The "New Deal" construction of the Hoover dam made it boom. Bugsy Siegal was not in Vegas until after WWII. The first casino, his Flamingo, was not opened until 1946.
The silver price was then capped in 1965 at $1.25-$1.29 by the government, selling from it's reserve to keep coins in circulation and avoiding a nation wide coin shortage. I remember the silver certificates being turned in for silver granules in the mid 1960's. J.P.
As I said above.
The Soviet Union had a professional mint that could have done the work. I presume that they must have had some mines that produced silver, even if only as a byproduct of their large gold operations.
Once they established diplomatic relations with the United States they could have shipped any quantity of counterfeit coins into the U.S. for distribution via their diplomatic corps. They didn't even need to smuggle them in; any customs agent would have passed them as genuine U.S. coins. We (the collecting hobby) did.
It has been suggested that these counterfeits have too high of a silver content. Either they did not care, or they had better uses for the copper that would have been needed to bring the alloy down to 90%.
And, if the alloy was lacking some of the copper needed to harden it, the coins would have worn down in circulation faster than regular 90% silver dollars. This could explain why they are often found in low grades.
T.D.
Numismatist. 50 year member ANA. Winner of four ANA Heath Literary Awards; three Wayte and Olga Raymond Literary Awards; Numismatist of the Year Award 2009, and Lifetime Achievement Award 2020. Winner numerous NLG Literary Awards.
@KOYNGUY said:
There is only one point in time that makes sense for these coin to be have been produced. These were most likely made in the great depression when silver bottomed out at 28 cents making the silver value of a silver dollar 22 cents. Nearly a five fold mark up less production costs.
Most of the time since 1902, silver averaged around a buck, making the margin 23% or less, not 500%.
Cheap hungry labor, cheap silver, Idle machinery, a perfect time to make some "Bucks". It would still allow 30 years for them to wear down.
While the mob and Las Vegas makes for a intriguing storyline, it was only a lonely railroad stop in 1931. The "New Deal" construction of the Hoover dam made it boom. Bugsy Siegal was not in Vegas until after WWII. The first casino, his Flamingo, was not opened until 1946.
The silver price was then capped in 1965 at $1.25-$1.29 by the government, selling from it's reserve to keep coins in circulation and avoiding a nation wide coin shortage. I remember the silver certificates being turned in for silver granules in the mid 1960's. J.P.
As I said above.
The Soviet Union had a professional mint that could have done the work. I presume that they must have had some mines that produced silver, even if only as a byproduct of their large gold operations.
Once they established diplomatic relations with the United States they could have shipped any quantity of counterfeit coins into the U.S. for distribution via their diplomatic corps. They didn't even need to smuggle them in; any customs agent would have passed them as genuine U.S. coins. We (the collecting hobby) did.
It has been suggested that these counterfeits have too high of a silver content. Either they did not care, or they had better uses for the copper that would have been needed to bring the alloy down to 90%.
And, if the alloy was lacking some of the copper needed to harden it, the coins would have worn down in circulation faster than regular 90% silver dollars. This could explain why they are often found in low grades.
T.D.
.
I doubt that the Soviet Union had anything to do with making these. And they may have been produced prior to 1917.
The question to ask is why does every coin in this family have an "O" mint mark. If a foreign country made them, they likely would have had some other mint marks mixed in and would have no reason to make every one an O mint. Not only that, but Philadelphia coins typically have better strikes than New Orleans coins, so Philadelphia coins would have made better subjects for the fabrication of transfer dies.
There is a reason for the O mint mark and I think it is because the coins were made in the southern United States by a group of people who were disgruntled with the US Government. I could envision some former (laid-off) New Orleans Mint employees making these after that government mint shut down in 1909.
@Wolf359 said:
Anyone want to predict what's going to happen to demand for these coins when PCGS starts attributing all Top 100 VAMs on their holders later this year?
I hope you're right. But knowing human nature, I think VAM prices will initially take a hit
. Everyone will want to "cherry" and flip them, not "pay" for them. Too many new holdered vams will hit the market in PCGS holders, overwhelming the supply.
Of course, 2-3 years down the road will be different.
afaik, PCGS DOES NOT SLAB COUNTERFEITS!
Not anymore, but I think that they did slab some.
They did until about 20 years ago or so. They offered a bounty for people to turn them in for "unslabbing", but there were no takers. ICG has a special label for contemporary counterfeits. The micro O counterfeit family is 32 out so die marriages and is highly sought after by some VAM collectors.
Within this family, how many different obverse dies are there, and how many different reverse dies please?
How many of the die marriages use the one really common reverse die?
Thank you.
Numismatist. 50 year member ANA. Winner of four ANA Heath Literary Awards; three Wayte and Olga Raymond Literary Awards; Numismatist of the Year Award 2009, and Lifetime Achievement Award 2020. Winner numerous NLG Literary Awards.
A discussion from Coin Talk. I used the search engine and found Micro O Morgan dollars. It also has a table of the counterfeits slabbed by ANACS, PCG, NGC, and ICG.
KBBPLL said: ↑
Very interesting table. Easy for me to figure out who TPG2 is.
I wonder how many of these got authenticated because a variety or die pair was erroneously published and that's all the TPG looked for? The 1899 25c DDR seems like another example of that.
Click to expand...
Insider said:
"I congratulate the PCGS experts who provided this information to the public. In actuality, ANACS, NGC, and PCGS all failed to detect these coins. PCI even certified a BU 1896-O "Micro O" over my strong objection it was C/F in the mid-1990s based on the opinion of a Morgan dollar "expert" consultant. That specific coin was as easy to ID as a fake because it was as poorly struck & granular under the scope as the 1896-P fakes detected and published by the ANA's authenticators years before.
Furthermore, after I joined NGC, we stopped certifying the "Micro O" fakes of these dates in 2001!
The real "story" here is the research done since 2005 by many numismatists on ALL THE OTHER "privately made" (nice term for COUNTERFEIT so dealers and TPGS could buy, sell, and slab them) Morgan dollars that are now known. (30 and IMHO more to be discovered)."
None seen yet, that's for sure. However, I believe there was another article in the NY Times after 3/13/98 that mentioned various dates turning up in several different cities. Unfortunately, now we have to subscribe in order to research old articles.
It was several years after 2005 that the first 1893-O "privately made" coin was reported and added to the VAM listings.
And the first 1894-O was reported a year or two after the 1893-O. So it is possible that other years will be discovered in this "family", but as time goes by the likelihood of that diminishes.
The listed 1900-S "privately-made" coin is not of the same "fabric" as the "O"-mints. So that leaves 37 die pairs currently known for the micro-o and associated die pair family.
There are a few VAM-VNA die pairs in the list. VNA stands for VAM Not Assigned. This is because Leroy Van Allen did not believe that the obverse or reverse dies for these had a link to other coins in the family. But they have similar characteristics and might eventually receive actual VAM numbers at some point.
I recently purchased a 1901-O Morgan on eBay (don't have it in-hand yet). From the seller's pictures (which are pretty good, but not optimal), it appears to be a "privately-made" family member. But I haven't been able to match it to a current listing from the pictures. So it might be a new one. I will know for sure when it arrives.
PS:
I personally discovered and reported these privately-made VAMs:
might I suggest that identify the individual obverse and reverse dies with some sort of code (maybe obverses starting with AA, BB, etc. and reverses counting backwards from ZZ, YY, etc.) to illustrate how certain dies are used across multiple die pairings?
Numismatist. 50 year member ANA. Winner of four ANA Heath Literary Awards; three Wayte and Olga Raymond Literary Awards; Numismatist of the Year Award 2009, and Lifetime Achievement Award 2020. Winner numerous NLG Literary Awards.
I still have a few of ANACS graded micro O's: 1896-O, 1900-O, & 1902-O.
Acquired them back when PCGS was still certifying them. Too bad I didn't sell or send them to PCGS prior to their announcement back in 2005, especially the 1900-O (ANACS AU-53).
Anyone know what happened to the ones PCGS bought back? I can understand their reasoning for not wanting them in PCGS slabs, but it would be a shame if they were destroyed.
@TrickleCharge said:
Anyone know what happened to the ones PCGS bought back? I can understand their reasoning for not wanting them in PCGS slabs, but it would be a shame if they were destroyed.
Somebody ask them to do some elemental analysis on a representative sample of them.
Numismatist. 50 year member ANA. Winner of four ANA Heath Literary Awards; three Wayte and Olga Raymond Literary Awards; Numismatist of the Year Award 2009, and Lifetime Achievement Award 2020. Winner numerous NLG Literary Awards.
might I suggest that identify the individual obverse and reverse dies with some sort of code (maybe obverses starting with AA, BB, etc. and reverses counting backwards from ZZ, YY, etc.) to illustrate how certain dies are used across multiple die pairings?
Is it not possible the mint has used the same reverse die for various years?
I do not know how the mint handles dies and how bad they need to be for removal from service. I am pretty sure they changed denominations on the same presses.
I have seen ICG slab HENNING nickels and mention contemporary counterfeit.
@davewesen said:
Is it not possible the mint has used the same reverse die for various years?
I do not know how the mint handles dies and how bad they need to be for removal from service. I am pretty sure they changed denominations on the same presses.
I have seen ICG slab HENNING nickels and mention contemporary counterfeit.
Yes, there are many instances where a reverse die was carried over to other years - in some cases even after a lapse of time. Yes, the Mint did use the same presses to strike different denominations. I'm sure some of these carry-over dies are mentioned in the new Trade dollar book too. I have not gotten deep into it yet.
@davewesen said:
Is it not possible the mint has used the same reverse die for various years?
I do not know how the mint handles dies and how bad they need to be for removal from service. I am pretty sure they changed denominations on the same presses.
I have seen ICG slab HENNING nickels and mention contemporary counterfeit.
Of course. Back in the 70's when I was at Coin World a collector showed me two consecutive year cents with the same reverse die. Had a minor die scratch or something that proved they were the same die. Think it was 1970-S and 1971-S, but I am not sure on the years now.
I would assume that back in the day it was common practice to leave undated reverse dies that still had some life in them in the press on the last working day of one year, and just slap in a new obverse of the new year on January 2nd or whatever. After all, why not? In cases where the total mintages were very low, say for instance Charlotte and Dahlonega gold, an undated reverse might last for several years.
However, with high mintage coins like Morgan dollars it is extremely unlikely that a reverse die would last from 1896 to 1900 to 1902.
Numismatist. 50 year member ANA. Winner of four ANA Heath Literary Awards; three Wayte and Olga Raymond Literary Awards; Numismatist of the Year Award 2009, and Lifetime Achievement Award 2020. Winner numerous NLG Literary Awards.
I have seen ICG slab HENNING nickels and mention contemporary counterfeit.
Do they grade them? If so, they may do the same for micro O coins. Furthermore, I would not fault any TPGS for slabbing those circulated old counterfeits. They seem to have defied detection from all the famous numismatists for well over a century! Many more of these things are probably stored in bags of G-VF junk silver all over the country.
I have a 1902 micro 0 in an old PCI slab graded AU50. Nicer than most other examples. It's not denoted micro o on the slab but its easy to tell its the micro o, also has other diagnostics present
Does anyone know what these counterfeit micro-o Morgans are selling for in PCGS slabs?
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
"Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."----Voltaire
I think you should thank the VAM folks for the research they did on these coins. Not the first service that decided to make the front page announcement. Some of these coins were thought to be copies in the early 1960's based on the "look". Nothing was published and were soon forgotten. In a strange twist, the copies are now worth multiples of the coins they imitate.
Not a surprise to me as i have been collecting contemporary copies for decades. unrecognized pieces of americana, money of necessity. ANACS worked with VAM folks for awhile after the initial publicity. Other date were found later and some still make it into holders today. J.P.
@KOYNGUY said:
I think you should thank the VAM folks for the research they did on these coins. Not the first service that decided to make the front page announcement. Some of these coins were thought to be copies in the early 1960's based on the "look". Nothing was published and were soon forgotten. In a strange twist, the copies are now worth multiples of the coins they imitate.
Not a surprise to me as i have been collecting contemporary copies for decades. unrecognized pieces of americana, money of necessity. ANACS worked with VAM folks for awhile after the initial publicity. Other date were found later and some still make it into holders today. J.P.
What info do you have from the early 1960's?
TD
Numismatist. 50 year member ANA. Winner of four ANA Heath Literary Awards; three Wayte and Olga Raymond Literary Awards; Numismatist of the Year Award 2009, and Lifetime Achievement Award 2020. Winner numerous NLG Literary Awards.
I don't remember. It may have when the news broke. I believe it could have been Coinworld or these very coin boards. It also may have been from John Roberts or the VAM folks. The coins
in high grade AU-UNC look different than mint products.
@clouisejewelers said:
I have a 1902 micro 0 in an old PCI slab graded AU50. Nicer than most other examples. It's not denoted micro o on the slab but its easy to tell its the micro o, also has other diagnostics present!
Wow, that's a nice one! That is a PCI slab from after Skip Fazzari left for NGC, but before the Proclamation of 2005. He was skeptical of the authenticity of those before the official proclamation. Had he seen this coin, he'd have written an article about it.
@yspsales said:
Enlightening.... but why go thru the trouble of adding an "O" mintmark?
For me, the micro "O" is akin to signing a work of art, which essentially they are.
So my working theory is a single disgruntled mint employee with access.
Possibly a Commie
Letter O as a first or last initial.
Perp with artistic flair.
Far more likely, the counterfeiter created his reverse die using a genuine Morgan dollar by casting or using some other transfer process and the genuine model coin just happened to have the Micro-O mintmark.
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
"Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."----Voltaire
Maybe added the 'O' because they were began circulating around the NO or southern US. A lot of Philly or SF coins might have aroused suspicion about the counterfeiting. Back then folks didn't travel as diversely. Just picked the wrong o.
@yspsales said:
Enlightening.... but why go thru the trouble of adding an "O" mintmark?
The reverse dies were copied from an authentic 1899-O VAM 6.
The obverse die for the 1902-O Micro O was copied from an authentic 1902-O VAM 54.
This. The counterfeiter picked a few coins at random and copied them. Coincidence.
Numismatist. 50 year member ANA. Winner of four ANA Heath Literary Awards; three Wayte and Olga Raymond Literary Awards; Numismatist of the Year Award 2009, and Lifetime Achievement Award 2020. Winner numerous NLG Literary Awards.
@KOYNGUY said:
I think you should thank the VAM folks for the research they did on these coins. Not the first service that decided to make the front page announcement. Some of these coins were thought to be copies in the early 1960's based on the "look". Nothing was published and were soon forgotten. In a strange twist, the copies are now worth multiples of the coins they imitate.
Not a surprise to me as i have been collecting contemporary copies for decades. unrecognized pieces of americana, money of necessity. ANACS worked with VAM folks for awhile after the initial publicity. Other date were found later and some still make it into holders today. J.P.
Where exactly did you come up with that? Who was suspicious? What year did you become a professions authenticator at ANACS. I'm not attacking you - just don't believe it. I'm going to guess most here were in their diapers back in the 60's and I know these things were published as genuine in the VA-M silver dollar book
@coastaljerseyguy said:
Maybe added the 'O' because they were began circulating around the NO or southern US. A lot of Philly or SF coins might have aroused suspicion about the counterfeiting. Back then folks didn't travel as diversely. Just picked the wrong o.
Guys, the "O" was not added. It was a part of the fake die.
Comments
He loaned me his collection of them for an article I wrote for COINage quite a while back.
That's VAM 42, the rarest by far of the micro O coins.
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars • Variety Attribution
https://www.pcgs.com/News/Pcgs-Announces-Contemporary-Counterfeit-Status-Of-1896-o-1900-o
Successful BST with ad4400, Kccoin, lablover, pointfivezero, koynekwest, jwitten, coin22lover, HalfDimeDude, erwindoc, jyzskowsi, COINS MAKE CENTS, AlanSki, BryceM
There is only one point in time that makes sense for these coin to be have been produced. These were most likely made in the great depression when silver bottomed out at 28 cents making the silver value of a silver dollar 22 cents. Nearly a five fold mark up less production costs.
Most of the time since 1902, silver averaged around a buck, making the margin 23% or less, not 500%.
Cheap hungry labor, cheap silver, Idle machinery, a perfect time to make some "Bucks". It would still allow 30 years for them to wear down.
While the mob and Las Vegas makes for a intriguing storyline, it was only a lonely railroad stop in 1931. The "New Deal" construction of the Hoover dam made it boom. Bugsy Siegal was not in Vegas until after WWII. The first casino, his Flamingo, was not opened until 1946.
The silver price was then capped in 1965 at $1.25-$1.29 by the government, selling from it's reserve to keep coins in circulation and avoiding a nation wide coin shortage. I remember the silver certificates being turned in for silver granules in the mid 1960's. J.P.
As I said above.
The Soviet Union had a professional mint that could have done the work. I presume that they must have had some mines that produced silver, even if only as a byproduct of their large gold operations.
Once they established diplomatic relations with the United States they could have shipped any quantity of counterfeit coins into the U.S. for distribution via their diplomatic corps. They didn't even need to smuggle them in; any customs agent would have passed them as genuine U.S. coins. We (the collecting hobby) did.
It has been suggested that these counterfeits have too high of a silver content. Either they did not care, or they had better uses for the copper that would have been needed to bring the alloy down to 90%.
And, if the alloy was lacking some of the copper needed to harden it, the coins would have worn down in circulation faster than regular 90% silver dollars. This could explain why they are often found in low grades.
T.D.
.
I doubt that the Soviet Union had anything to do with making these. And they may have been produced prior to 1917.
The question to ask is why does every coin in this family have an "O" mint mark. If a foreign country made them, they likely would have had some other mint marks mixed in and would have no reason to make every one an O mint. Not only that, but Philadelphia coins typically have better strikes than New Orleans coins, so Philadelphia coins would have made better subjects for the fabrication of transfer dies.
There is a reason for the O mint mark and I think it is because the coins were made in the southern United States by a group of people who were disgruntled with the US Government. I could envision some former (laid-off) New Orleans Mint employees making these after that government mint shut down in 1909.
.
Within this family, how many different obverse dies are there, and how many different reverse dies please?
How many of the die marriages use the one really common reverse die?
Thank you.
A discussion from Coin Talk. I used the search engine and found Micro O Morgan dollars. It also has a table of the counterfeits slabbed by ANACS, PCG, NGC, and ICG.
KBBPLL said: ↑
Very interesting table. Easy for me to figure out who TPG2 is.
I know it's not in your "modern" counterfeits category, but the 1896, 1900 and 1902 Micro O Morgan dollars is an interesting story. They were certified for years (PCGS alone authenticated 95 of them). https://www.pcgs.com/news/pcgs-announces-contemporary-counterfeit-status-of-1896-o-1900-o
I wonder how many of these got authenticated because a variety or die pair was erroneously published and that's all the TPG looked for? The 1899 25c DDR seems like another example of that.
Click to expand...
Insider said:
"I congratulate the PCGS experts who provided this information to the public. In actuality, ANACS, NGC, and PCGS all failed to detect these coins. PCI even certified a BU 1896-O "Micro O" over my strong objection it was C/F in the mid-1990s based on the opinion of a Morgan dollar "expert" consultant. That specific coin was as easy to ID as a fake because it was as poorly struck & granular under the scope as the 1896-P fakes detected and published by the ANA's authenticators years before.
Furthermore, after I joined NGC, we stopped certifying the "Micro O" fakes of these dates in 2001!
The real "story" here is the research done since 2005 by many numismatists on ALL THE OTHER "privately made" (nice term for COUNTERFEIT so dealers and TPGS could buy, sell, and slab them) Morgan dollars that are now known. (30 and IMHO more to be discovered)."
From Daniel Carr: http://moonlightmint.com/VAM_privately_made/00.htm
see New York Times article, 13 March 1898
1888-O's would not be from this group from the 1898 article.
None seen yet, that's for sure. However, I believe there was another article in the NY Times after 3/13/98 that mentioned various dates turning up in several different cities. Unfortunately, now we have to subscribe in order to research old articles.
It was several years after 2005 that the first 1893-O "privately made" coin was reported and added to the VAM listings.
And the first 1894-O was reported a year or two after the 1893-O. So it is possible that other years will be discovered in this "family", but as time goes by the likelihood of that diminishes.
This is a list of most of the known VAM "privately-made" pieces from VAMworld:
ec2-18-221-104-31.us-east-2.compute.amazonaws.com/wiki/Listed_Privately_Made_Varieties
The one coin left off that list is the 1902-O VAM-101 (discovered in 2022):
ec2-18-221-104-31.us-east-2.compute.amazonaws.com/wiki/1902-O_VAM-101
The listed 1900-S "privately-made" coin is not of the same "fabric" as the "O"-mints. So that leaves 37 die pairs currently known for the micro-o and associated die pair family.
There are a few VAM-VNA die pairs in the list. VNA stands for VAM Not Assigned. This is because Leroy Van Allen did not believe that the obverse or reverse dies for these had a link to other coins in the family. But they have similar characteristics and might eventually receive actual VAM numbers at some point.
I recently purchased a 1901-O Morgan on eBay (don't have it in-hand yet). From the seller's pictures (which are pretty good, but not optimal), it appears to be a "privately-made" family member. But I haven't been able to match it to a current listing from the pictures. So it might be a new one. I will know for sure when it arrives.
PS:
I personally discovered and reported these privately-made VAMs:
1893-O VAM-7
1893-O VAM-8
1893-O VAM-9
1894-O VAM VNA-A
1894-O VAM VNA-B
1902-O VAM-92
Thank you.
When next you update this chart
http://ec2-18-221-104-31.us-east-2.compute.amazonaws.com/wiki/Listed_Privately_Made_Varieties
might I suggest that identify the individual obverse and reverse dies with some sort of code (maybe obverses starting with AA, BB, etc. and reverses counting backwards from ZZ, YY, etc.) to illustrate how certain dies are used across multiple die pairings?
I still have a few of ANACS graded micro O's: 1896-O, 1900-O, & 1902-O.
Acquired them back when PCGS was still certifying them. Too bad I didn't sell or send them to PCGS prior to their announcement back in 2005, especially the 1900-O (ANACS AU-53).
I own a few slabbed ones but none in a PCGS slab.
Anyone know what happened to the ones PCGS bought back? I can understand their reasoning for not wanting them in PCGS slabs, but it would be a shame if they were destroyed.
Somebody ask them to do some elemental analysis on a representative sample of them.
.
That would be a handy addition. But I am not the person who maintains that list. I don't know who does. A posting about this on the VAMworld forum might get some reaction:
vamworld.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=4&sid=1a4fcbcb981ac3017e527f080039286d
.
Here is a current generation ANACS slab 1902-O Vam 3 Counterfeit.
It can (and has) happened to all the grading services. The best they can do is work with the information that they have at the time.
1893-O "Privately-Made" VAM-7 (with wide neck-wing gap reverse hub type of 1900) in a recent-generation PCGS slab:
1893-O "Privately-Made" VAM-8 (with doubled denticle on reverse) in a recent-generation NGC slab:
.
PS:
I did not submit either of these coins for grading. I found them for sale already in the holders as shown.
.
Is it not possible the mint has used the same reverse die for various years?
I do not know how the mint handles dies and how bad they need to be for removal from service. I am pretty sure they changed denominations on the same presses.
I have seen ICG slab HENNING nickels and mention contemporary counterfeit.
Yes, there are many instances where a reverse die was carried over to other years - in some cases even after a lapse of time. Yes, the Mint did use the same presses to strike different denominations. I'm sure some of these carry-over dies are mentioned in the new Trade dollar book too. I have not gotten deep into it yet.
Of course. Back in the 70's when I was at Coin World a collector showed me two consecutive year cents with the same reverse die. Had a minor die scratch or something that proved they were the same die. Think it was 1970-S and 1971-S, but I am not sure on the years now.
I would assume that back in the day it was common practice to leave undated reverse dies that still had some life in them in the press on the last working day of one year, and just slap in a new obverse of the new year on January 2nd or whatever. After all, why not? In cases where the total mintages were very low, say for instance Charlotte and Dahlonega gold, an undated reverse might last for several years.
However, with high mintage coins like Morgan dollars it is extremely unlikely that a reverse die would last from 1896 to 1900 to 1902.
Do they grade them? If so, they may do the same for micro O coins. Furthermore, I would not fault any TPGS for slabbing those circulated old counterfeits. They seem to have defied detection from all the famous numismatists for well over a century! Many more of these things are probably stored in bags of G-VF junk silver all over the country.
I have a 1902 micro 0 in an old PCI slab graded AU50. Nicer than most other examples. It's not denoted micro o on the slab but its easy to tell its the micro o, also has other diagnostics present
Does anyone know what these counterfeit micro-o Morgans are selling for in PCGS slabs?
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
"Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."----Voltaire
I think you should thank the VAM folks for the research they did on these coins. Not the first service that decided to make the front page announcement. Some of these coins were thought to be copies in the early 1960's based on the "look". Nothing was published and were soon forgotten. In a strange twist, the copies are now worth multiples of the coins they imitate.
Not a surprise to me as i have been collecting contemporary copies for decades. unrecognized pieces of americana, money of necessity. ANACS worked with VAM folks for awhile after the initial publicity. Other date were found later and some still make it into holders today. J.P.
What info do you have from the early 1960's?
TD
I don't remember. It may have when the news broke. I believe it could have been Coinworld or these very coin boards. It also may have been from John Roberts or the VAM folks. The coins
in high grade AU-UNC look different than mint products.
Wow, that's a nice one! That is a PCI slab from after Skip Fazzari left for NGC, but before the Proclamation of 2005. He was skeptical of the authenticity of those before the official proclamation. Had he seen this coin, he'd have written an article about it.
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars • Variety Attribution
I thought it might be possible for these issues to be associated with the Free Silver Moment… but I have found absolutely nothing to support this.
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Enlightening.... but why go thru the trouble of adding an "O" mintmark?
For me, the micro "O" is akin to signing a work of art, which essentially they are.
So my working theory is a single disgruntled mint employee with access.
Possibly a Commie
Letter O as a first or last initial.
Perp with artistic flair.
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chopmarkedtradedollars.com
Far more likely, the counterfeiter created his reverse die using a genuine Morgan dollar by casting or using some other transfer process and the genuine model coin just happened to have the Micro-O mintmark.
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
"Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."----Voltaire
Maybe added the 'O' because they were began circulating around the NO or southern US. A lot of Philly or SF coins might have aroused suspicion about the counterfeiting. Back then folks didn't travel as diversely. Just picked the wrong o.
The reverse dies were copied from an authentic 1899-O VAM 6.
The obverse die for the 1902-O Micro O was copied from an authentic 1902-O VAM 54 43.
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars • Variety Attribution
This. The counterfeiter picked a few coins at random and copied them. Coincidence.
A PCGS slabbed 1896-O VF30 Micro O just sold on eBay for $1500
https://ebay.com/itm/116619412356
Where exactly did you come up with that? Who was suspicious? What year did you become a professions authenticator at ANACS. I'm not attacking you - just don't believe it. I'm going to guess most here were in their diapers back in the 60's and I know these things were published as genuine in the VA-M silver dollar book
@coastaljerseyguy said:
Guys, the "O" was not added. It was a part of the fake die.