89-CC Morgan

What did you pay for the coin? If it was under $1000 and it is authentic it is almost certainly a "problem" coin. Not saying by any means you stole it but at a price under what I listed is to good to be true. I would have asked the guy how he acquired it and as long as you feel good about his answer I wouldn't sweat it as you bought it in good faith. HAve it graded and sell it to me. I prefer PCGS lol

As I posted earlier is now imperative to insure this was a sound investment. Send this to one of the three top TPG services to confirm it is authentic and your choice of services should be driven by your intent with this coin. ANACS is sufficient if you plan to keep this and PCGS if you intend to flip it. Good Luck and keep us posted.

Id send it to PCGS personally or NGC.

The market premiums go PCGS NGC ANACS in that order. I dont see the value of slabbing it in one company to keep and potentially reslabbing it to sell. ANACS is fine for making sure its real and people say it because its cheaper to have the coin slabbed, but when talking about a coin worth thousands of dollars the extra 20 or 30 bucks to have PCGS slab it is miniscule

I agree smoke rider, I was really turned off by some of the responses....GOOD PICK UP rob oz!

The only reason I said PCGS over NGC is PCGS slabbed coins tend to do slightly better in the market (or at least used to). ANACS is fine for authentication and you don't have to join like PCGS and NGC($). There is no wrong choice to be made as long as you have one of these three companies verify the coin. ANACS will also attribute the VAM number regardless of which die pair it is, although it appears to be a VAM5 which is supposed to be the most common. PCGS and NGC will only attribute the popular VAMS, top100, hot50 and hitlist40. Once again, keep us posted and good luck!

Got a question. So with this VAM business. These have to do with the dies and it specifies which dies were used. Correct? Are these VAM's specific to all the morgans produced? Hope that's a clear question.

OK, here's VAMming 101:


The VAM model is sort of a theoretical one. The majority of coin issues are separated by specific die pairs; this is the general idea as well with Morgans but given the huge mintages and advanced technology of the day, it will probably never be possible to identify individual die pairs for the vast majority of VAMs. Some have striking features like the 1878-P VAM-44; others have such low mintages (like your 1889-CC) that it becomes possible to separate specific die pairs.


Each year/mint starts with VAM-1 and counts from there by identified variety. The overwhelming majority are actually rather boring - date location, minute doubling, mint mark orientation, die cracks in specific places, all help to differentiate them and very few carry more than passing interest to all but the hardcore collector.


Given that each die design has specific weak spots and areas of high stress, it's easy to understand how many differing Morgan VAMs can have similar features - dies tend to crack in specific areas, and polishing marks tend to be somewhat similar.

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Now, for your coin, as I'm finally able to look at your images on a full-size monitor. I see no glaring indication that it's a counterfeit; if it is, it's a very good one indeed. However, I don't see clear indication of any specific VAM, which is mildly disturbing since all die pairs for this issue are known. It most closely resembles VAM-3.

I'm guessing its' grade to be no worse than AU55, and its' value no less than $7000, likely rather more.


If it's ever going to be your desire to liquidate this coin, it is imperative that you have it authenticated by a grading service. The actual grade assigned isn't that important; the market for a coin of this value is populated by people who can grade for themselves. But, it must be authenticated.


I urge you to use PCGS as the service for this. Like it or not, the market considers PCGS coins to carry the greatest value, and in your case that premium could be more than $1000. Rather than having to join PCGS, you can contact a local dealer affiliated with them to "piggyback" a submission. Not all dealers do this, but given your location it's undoubbtable that you'll find one. As an Admin, I have access to your location (based on IP) and your registration email; I'm going to be contacting you offline with recommendations to this end.

This is my "PATENT PENDING" homemade phone loupe... LOL... One loupe with unknown magnification and a 10x on top of that one. Hopefully the pics will be a bit better.