$1000 Morgan bag question..........
2manycoins2fewfunds
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If you stumbled across a sealed bag of Morgans obtained in early 1960's and it was a common date such as 1883-O, 1884-O, 1886 or 1887 how would that bag on average grade out??
What % MS66-65-64-63-62- etc.
What % MS66-65-64-63-62- etc.
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And if it was filled with CC morgans I would surely die..........
Anywhere from Fine to MS, I think those bags were mixed.
I'll take it for current silver spot price if you like!
You wouldn't believe how long it took to get him to sit still for this.
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<< <i>It wouldn't matter to me. Just finding a bag like that would give me a heart attack.
And if it was filled with CC morgans I would surely die.......... >>
Die from extreme joy that is..........
TC71
Assume you have a sealed bag of 1884-Os.
How many will grade 62? 63? 64? 65 and up??
PCGS population numbers represent pre screened coins but do relative ratios hold??
Just how good were those bags that left the mint in early 1960s??
I've been told I tolerate fools poorly...that may explain things if I have a problem with you. Current ebay items - Nothing at the moment
#1 and #3 are obvious, but #2 needs a bit of explanation. From time to time bags of dollars, stored in damp basement vaults, rotted and broke. Employees shoveled the coins into tote boxes and recounted and bagged them. Sometimes coins from different dates/mints got mixed, and no one cared to separate them. On occasion, this involved many thousands of coins. Several large-scale instances occurred in the 1890’s.
An interesting aside:
The bags were made in the mints by the sewing department until the 1940s.
Another aside:
Bags for one cent coins held $20 until World War II, when the size was increased to $50 to save canvas for war uses and standardize on the dollar-size bag. (They really didn’t standardize, though.)
as described on the canvass. Canvass might say one date and coins inside were completely mixed.
I don't know how or why this would happen but I saw it firsthand while working in the hard count
room of The Carson Hot Springs Spa and Casino back in 60 to 64. The shovel method mentioned
makes sense but does not account for circulated coins. The "info on the street" at the time said that
the coins were returned to the mint from banks that had overstock dollars and that the mint then used
whatever canvass they had to repackage them into 1000 coin bags. I too "peaked" into the bags but
did it with a round pencil and a LOT of pressure and patience. Many of the coins in my collection came
from those days back in Carson. Today you have cameras that are extremely small and in color as well.
I use one to see eardrums in peoples ears. Shows up on a TV in living color and would work wonders
on a bag of dollars. So, just bring it to me and we'll peak!
As for the question I'd say that you could not expect the coins to be that great today unless you can
verify that they sat in one place for all these years. I'd say the you would have 20% at 60 and 61,
70% at 62 and 63, 8% at 64, 1% at 65 and the rest at something other like 66 or PL or DMPL.
bob
Please take pics and let us know how it comes out!
I would guess they would be no better than the GSA Morgan Dollars (i.e. very baggy).
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<< <i>Submit it unopened and get "1st Strike" on the labels
The only FS Morgans are the 1878 VAM-9 and possibly the 1895 proofs.
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My favorite story is from a friend who says he spoke with a fellow from CA who as a teenager played with a kid whose dad had a side wall of his garage/vault stacked head high with bags. It was a very wealthy neighborhood.
I believe there are likely still some bags from the 1950s out there..........
We were all disappointed. We all had 1878 S already, although these were a upgrade. We would have preferred to find 1889 CC or 1893 S, even if circulated.
<< <i>A small group of us got a bag directly from the FRB in probably 1962. It was a treasury bag that had been audited, hence was doublebagged - treasury within FRB bags. It contained 999 BU 1878 S and one beat up 1923 P. The 1878's were superb. I didn't know MS numbers then, and I doubt I am qualified to assign them today. But I would guess most of them were at least a 65. A few were well toned where they must have contacted the canvas bag.
We were all disappointed. We all had 1878 S already, although these were a upgrade. We would have preferred to find 1889 CC or 1893 S, even if circulated. >>
But what a great memory to have and share!
The name is LEE!
If it's a bank bag changes are most of the coins have at least minimal circulation.
The outside bag had a FRB seal on it.
Inside of it was the treasury bag and its disconnected seal. I don't remember anything extraordinary about the treasury bag. To the best of my memory, it was just a white bag. The coins in it carried their own credentials as being GEM BU. I suspect the auditor couldn't resist them and swapped his 1923 pocket piece for one of them.
Our group got quite a few bags from the Fed. They were usually unaudited treasury bags (and the count was correct). They usually contained circulated Morgan dollars and you could tell what year was the cutoff date. I think about 1 in 10 treasury bags were audited. Occasionally we would get a plain FRB bag, especially early in the year after after Christmas was over. That was one of the few times we would see Peace dollars.