I remember when I was a kid growing up in Missouri, late 60's - early 70's, we could buy Morgan doll

Scavenger · July 7, 2006 1:01AM

That was alot of money for a kid then, cutting the neighbor's grass might get you $4. Now I see that the average Morgans are selling around $25 - $30. Of course I'm not talking about key dates / high grades here. I guess with inflation and increased minimum wages it's about the same for a kid today.
It just got me wondering what do you think they will be selling for in say 2025?

BigTom · July 7, 2006 2:01AM

My kids get about $20-$25 for mowing neighbors' yards. Guess morgans have outperformed manual labor........................

ledzep87 · July 7, 2006 2:07AM

A Morgan dollar for $3 or $4!?! Man, you are old!

doughmaking · July 7, 2006 2:14AM

grass cutting for 25-30?? wow...Im 30 now and when I was a kid I was lucky to get 6-10 bucks...haha....I lost money on mowing lawns cause I stuffed the leaves and clippings down the storm drain.....thats a $300 fine.....

INXS · July 7, 2006 2:14AM

Interesting story. My Nana had a sewn in pocket in her bra that she always carried a Morgan. This was in case she was picked up she couldnt be considered a vagrant. This practice was common amongst German immigrants that spoke little or no English at least in the Midwest specifically Indiana. The men carried theirs in the watch pocket right behind the watch.

mtnman · July 7, 2006 2:17AM

I must be really old. I can remember going to the bank and getting
Morgan's for face value. Still have some of them.

BlindedByEgo · July 7, 2006 2:19AM

My father-in-law said that in 1963 he used to carry 2 bags (1000 Silver $'s) at a time from the bank down the street to the mercantile. This was in Great Falls, Montana. He said that they would ship them back east for a small profit - I guess the buyers back east wanted a shot at the selection available in the west.

They bought them from the bank at, of course, face value. Think of all the CC's...

cartwheel · July 7, 2006 2:34AM

I must be really old. I can remember going to the bank and getting Morgan's for face value. Still have some of them.

Me, too, and Peace dollars. I ruined most of them by harshly cleaning them, including a (formerly mint state) 1928-S.

Cartwheel

thebestMAX · July 7, 2006 2:44AM

I had to reply to this since I saw Great Falls, Montana. Spent about 10 years there from about 1964 on.

I too remember going to the banks there and in other Montana citys and being able to get rolls of Morgans and Peace dollars mixed for face. Unfortuneatly I was in the Air Force then and didnt have much spare cash so not much came of it for me. Wish I could go back.

I do remember going into coin shops and seeing BU Dollars for anywhere from 25 cents to just a few dollars over face depending on dates.
No MS numbers either.

PerryHall · July 7, 2006 2:47AM

In the early 60's you could get them at face value at most banks. At the time they were as popular as the Sac's and SBA's are now.

carl · July 7, 2006 3:34AM

I used to get those things for an allowance when I was a kid. As soon as I got them I'd go to a place called Riverview Amusement park and spend all of them.

AU58WALKERS · July 7, 2006 3:37AM

<< A Morgan dollar for $3 or $4!?! Man, you are old!

>>

when I was in high school, early 60's, we could get them for face at the local bank.

Russellhome · July 7, 2006 3:39AM

I got into coins as a teen at about the same time (mid-70's). Our local coin shop had two silver dollar 'junk' boxes to choose from. The $2.99 box had Morgan and Peace dollars with holes, rim dings, or just plain worn out (VF or less). The $3.99 box had pretty nice common date silver dollars XF/AU usually -- but a few toned MS coins made it into that box as well (toned was a bad thing back then). A 'Gem BU' dollar could be had for less than $10. Minimum wage was $2.10, so it took about 2 or 3 hours of work for 1 nice silver dollar (not much different than today for common date silver dollars).

The twist is what happened to silver in 1980. When silver prices went crazy and for a short while topped $50 per ounce, the same coin shop where I paid $3 and $4 per silver dollar a few years before was buying silver at 40 times face. I actually rode my bike down to the coin shop with what would have been $1800 in silver at 40 times face. That would have been a fortune for me at the time and would have been more than enough to get a nice first car (as I had just turned 16). But the coin shop was swamped with buyers and sellers who were apparently a little more important than me. I was asked to come back another day.

This was the absolute peak of the silver madness and within days the price started falling, and falling, and falling, and was soon down to less than $25 per oz. Ever the foolish optimist, I waited and waited for it to go back up. It finally did -- about 25 years later. I still have most of that silver -- and if it hits 40x face again, I won't be turned away this time.

And by the way, my first car was a $300 POS 1966 VW bug with more bondo than sheet metal.

BigTom · July 7, 2006 3:50AM

Russelhome's story took me back. I was 16 when silver spiked to $50/oz. All of my Morgan's were junk stuff and I ended up selling all of them for $35-$40/each. Spent most of the money on pot and alcohol. Pissed the rest of it away. Those were the days.

I only returned to the hobby after that in 2001.

Russellhome · July 7, 2006 4:03AM

<< Russelhome's story took me back. I was 16 when silver spiked to $50/oz. All of my Morgan's were junk stuff and I ended up selling all of them for $35-$40/each. Spent most of the money on pot and alcohol. Pissed the rest of it away. Those were the days. >>

For me, the pot and the alcohol did not start until my freshman year of college. But when my grades suffered badly, I quickly gave that up. Now - had I got the $1800 for my silver, I was planning on buying a 1968 Camero SS from my dad's friend. It had the biggest engine available and given the way I drove when I was 16, I'd probably be dead. So -- perhaps it is a good thing I didn't get the cash.

xphobe · July 7, 2006 4:09AM

Scavenger and I must have been neighbors. I grew up in KCMO, and was 8 when the government abandoned silver and proof sets. My grandfather derisively called the new clad coins "Johnson money". $5 yards sounds about right. By age 16 I had a nice set of about 40 common date MS Morgans.

My grandfather worked at a Jewish hospital, so a lot of our friends were Jewish. I asked one lady why she always wore so much gold jewelry, even at informal occasions. She thought about it a moment, then said "I suppose it's because the Nazis made us leave everything behind when they took us to the camps. Since then, a part of me has always felt the need to be able to get away quickly if necessary, and gold is portable money."

That was the first time I felt a personal connection to what happened in WW2. Maybe it's one reason I still collect coins, but to this day I avoid Johnson money!

Russellhome · July 7, 2006 4:26AM

<< That was the first time I felt a personal connection to what happened in WW2. Maybe it's one reason I still collect coins, but to this day I avoid Johnson money! >>

One reason I collect coins is that I'm also interested in history. I aquired this in trade back in the 70's...

I don't keep it with my reglar coin collection. It kind of creeps me out. I've thought about getting rid of it over the years, but never have. The NAZIs minting these numismatics at its lowest point.

xphobe · July 7, 2006 4:32AM

Cool! I am looking for a Lodz Ghetto coin. Specifically one of the magnesium ones, which I understand are harder to come by because the prisoners used them as fire starters.

Veep · July 7, 2006 4:35AM

$4 for cutting grass?? That must have been in Beverly Hills. I got $1.50 which included about 300 feet of trimming along the driveway and sidewalk with those hand clippers. Can you say b-l-i-s-t-e-r-s? Oh, and for a tip, I got a nice cold glass of pop. When I started caddying, I made Honor Caddy my first summar and made $8 for a double, plus tip. A good double was anything over $11. Doubles now are $50-60.

Oh to keep it coin related, at about the same time, I remember my Dad paying $2.65 a piece for as many Morgans as he wanted.

MORGANHUNTER2 · July 7, 2006 5:33AM

I used to get those things for an allowance when I was a kid. As soon as I got them I'd go to a place called Riverview Amusement park and spend all of them.

so did I Carl- Riverview was a blast.

Russellhome · July 7, 2006 5:57AM

<< Cool! I am looking for a Lodz Ghetto coin. Specifically one of the magnesium ones, which I understand are harder to come by because the prisoners used them as fire starters. >>

Sorry for side-tracking this post, but...

This one looks like it is made out of aluminum to me. Perhaps I should try and burn it to find out? I’ve heard that there are lots of counterfeits of these floating around flea markets in Poland and Eastern Europe. I got this one from a German kid I knew in High School. His family was from NAZI and then East Germany and had escaped just before the Wall went up. The story was that a road construction worker found this coin and a ‘Quittung Uber 10 Mark’ coin shortly after the war and traded them to my friend’s father at a local pub for buying his beer. I did see the other coin. It was damaged and that was probably why I did not go for it in what ever it was I was trading for. The story seems reasonable and I have had this coin since 1980 or so. I can’t say that it is not counterfeit – but I can’t be sure it is authentic either. I can’t remember what I traded for it, but it wasn’t much. So who knows?

CaptHenway · July 7, 2006 5:58AM

We recently bought a large group of coins from an estate where the deceased had been a weekend coin dealer up until the late 1960's, and then suddenly stopped doing it and put everything in storage. Common date circ. silver dollars were in cardboard 2x2's with written prices of 1.25, 1.40, 1.50, etc. BU 1922 and 1923 dollars were 1.75.
Tom D.

Conder101 · July 7, 2006 6:46AM

You could get silver dollars from the bank for face value up until about 1968. The Morgan and Peace dollars just really weren't that popular back then. I have a coin book (Price guide) copyright 1965 that says under the Morgan and Peace that if you have them you might as well spend them because they are so common they won't be worth any premium. and all but a few keys are listed at $1.25

INXS · July 7, 2006 7:17AM

<< I used to get those things for an allowance when I was a kid. As soon as I got them I'd go to a place called Riverview Amusement park and spend all of them.

so did I Carl- Riverview was a blast. >>

Remember the water shoots that was the best at the time. We only got over there about once a summer as it was a 2 hour drive for us at that time now its probably about an hour drive if Riverview had still been there. I had those memories from Indiana and when I moved to Jersey we had Pallisades Amusemet park that to has gone by the wayside to a high rise apartment complex, all that is left is a plaque.

MrKelso · July 7, 2006 7:22AM

<< 

<< I used to get those things for an allowance when I was a kid. As soon as I got them I'd go to a place called Riverview Amusement park and spend all of them.

so did I Carl- Riverview was a blast. >>

Remember the water shoots that was the best at the time. We only got over there about once a summer as it was a 2 hour drive for us at that time now its probably about an hour drive if Riverview had still been there. I had those memories from Indiana and when I moved to Jersey we had Pallisades Amusemet park that to has gone by the wayside to a high rise apartment complex, all that is left is a plaque. >>

My Grandfather and his brother ran a couple different rides at Palisades, As a kid i was at the Park Every day in the summer and rode every ride and the Coaster for free.. Ahhh the Good old days When a Silver Dollar got you a whole day of fun and food.

ABC123 · July 7, 2006 7:26AM

Some of us can remember buying gasoline for less than a dollar a gallon also !

Conder101 · July 7, 2006 12:37PM

<< Some of us can remember buying gasoline for less than a dollar a gallon also ! >>

That wasn't all that long ago.

bidask · July 8, 2006 8:36AM

A guy in my neigborhood handed them out for Halloween!

I remember when I was a kid growing up in Missouri, late 60's - early 70's, we could buy Morgan doll

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