Book Review - Prooflike Morgan Silver Dollars by Lester D. Taylor - Thanks Heritage!
ProofCollection
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A big thank you to Heritage Auctions for sending me this book on PL Morgan Silver Dollars:
This is an amazing comprehensive look at PL varieties of every date and MM of Morgan Silver Dollars.
The book provides lots of interesting background and what to expect for each coin issue which is immensely helpful, especially for those issues where PLs are very rare. Most of the coins mentioned appear to be coins he owns or has handled and his collection seems to span all TPGs and include plenty of raw coins which is why I don't think he has a PCGS registry set. The background on the 1921 Morgans was extra interesting with all of the info about the Zerbe and Chapman dollars. At the end he discusses notable PL Morgan collections but does not mention mine as my collection is probably too recent. I can't imagine what it took to assemble the images and data for this book, it is truly remarkable and a must for anyone who collects these. The only thing that would make the book better is if there was a digital version where one could view ultra high res photos.
If anyone happens to have contact info for Lester Taylor, I would really appreciate it if someone can put me in touch with him.
Comments
If no one else provides a more direct approach, you might try reaching him through the AACG.
Link: https://www.aacg.com/people/lester-taylor-phd/
Judging the book by the cover, perhaps, but seeing a mediocre picture of a non-PL dollar makes me view the work with arched brow. I assume, based on your review, that my concern is misplaced, but first impressions and all that.
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars • Variety Attribution
I was confounded by that choice. Why not use a high grade, high contrast DMPL to really exemplify the subject of the book? That's a huge miss.
I may have made my review sound a bit too rosy. It has good info that's hard to find anywhere else. Honestly, Coinfacts should incorporate a lot of the text in to each page. Beyond the initial description of the year and issue, it is a little tedious to read the content as he describes the various photos which are too small to really see what he's describing most of the time. The limitations of print are unfortunate in this regard. Here is a sample page to see what I mean.
Odd he says 89-CC is rare as prooflike, when despite the fact that it is rare in high grades, it is the issue most commonly found PL when it is in high grade (i.e., highest percentage of the total MS population is also PL or DMPL).
The pictures are smaller than actual size, which is unacceptable in any current coin book. Large medals may have to be reduced to fit, but not coins. He describes Fig. 272 as having reflective fields and frosty devices, but I don't see that in the pictures. Was this originally published before there was a widespread expectation of high quality photos?
From what I see, I'll continue to recommend the Wayne Miller book along with the Morgan Dollar Red Book.
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars • Variety Attribution
Unless I missed it, I don't think he said that. He says specimens (PL or otherwise) grading higher than MS62 are exceedingly rare which is true.
The photos are overdone and too numerous. I agree they should be actual size or larger. However the book is 400 pages as it is. Making the photos any larger would have pushed that to 600 or more. I think he should have cut out half of the photos and made them larger.
PL/DMPL photography is challenging and I get the impression that they didn't just do one big photo shoot for the book... that the photos may have been taken over time under different conditions by different cameras. Hard to say really. But then you add the complication of printing the photo in black and white. Honestly I get more out of the die discussion and discussion of the common traits... which years have no cameo contrast, which have lots, etc.
Do they have a lot of PL/DMPL content?
Bottom of left page. I'm really not sure what he means here, so maybe I'm mistaken. Nevertheless, in a book dedicated to PL Morgans, it should be mentioned that MS 89-CCs are disproportionately prooflike compared to the rest of the series.
Yes. Both have a date-by-date commentary. Miller has a paragraph or so for each date discussing PL coins and their typical appearance. The Red Book has a sentence or two, but also discusses PL coins in general in the rest of the text. The pictures in Miller aren't as good, but the book was put out in 1981. Neither devotes space to photos of PL coins. For this, I recommend reading Miller's text and looking at the CoinFacts pictures.
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars • Variety Attribution
Looks like his collection will he at HA in June, curious what he has.
I wonder if there's more material coming, I've not been overly impressed with anything I saw. You can tell he bought anything that was PL... Raw, ICG, ANACS, NGC, PCGS.
Yes, if you had the rest of the book he starts off each issue by declaring a rarity and it's relative to other issues, like the 1896-S which is "excessively rare." I don't think his statement is inaccurate but you are correct, it seems about 30% of MS 89-CCs are PL or DMPL.
Bummer is for me is I seen it in other books like that. Its distracting to me
@ProofCollection Enjoy the book, and happy collecting!