1894-P Morgan Dollar -- Real Or Fake?

Wow, a picture is worth a thousand words. Dave's photos are a stark reality.

What did you pay for it? There are no secrets on ebay. Thousands of people may have looked at that coin. If you got an incredible deal on a rare coin on ebay something is usually wrong with it. That is my opinion. What I have seen lately with Morgans on ebay is they are asking retail plus for even common coins. You could do better at your LCS. In fact, I do better at my LCS because I trust the guy and he does give me a discount on his mark-up because I know he pays about 30-50 cents on the dollar or less for the coins he buys. I see elderly guys cashing in their collections every time I go there to buy coins.

The date is what alerted me to it possibly being fake. I weighed the coin and it was 26.5 which is not outside what a Morgan could weigh with some wear. It even has the sound of silver when you let it gently vibrate on the table. It is a good fake, though like 99% of them they are not correct to the original. I paid $500 for the coin. I told the seller that it was fake and he apologized and offered a full money back return. The problem is not myself as I know to check all key-date coins, especially on ebay. The problem is with the other key-date coins that he has sold. I clicked on his name and looked under his sold items and you can see an 1889-CC he sold for $250, among other coins. The most concerning thing is, they all have similar wear to my coin, just around the edges. I think most of the coins he is selling are decent fakes. The seller may or may not know, though he is selling them and buyers are leaving positive feedback. That is the only reason I made the buy, though guess I learned a lesson here. Again, thank you all for your help!

Below is a link to his current listings. Even though they are not key-date they appear to be fakes. I am not sure why someone would fake non-key dates as there is little value, though they all look the same, the wear, etc. Decide for yourself and you can look through his completed listings as well. Everyone keeps leaving positive feedback? The sellers user name on ebay is ahre_hunt

http://www.ebay.com/sch/ahre_hunt/m....m2748.l2654

Everything he is selling and has sold is fake.

You answered your own question. He gets a 1000% mark up and since the coins aren't keys they aren't examined closely and stick with the new buyers. He keeps the money. He can do this for a long time before he is found out. With keys or semi-keys he makes more per sale but is found out almost immediately and can only sell a few. It is the classic common battle between two business models. Make a killing on every unit but only sell a few, or make a good profit per item and sell thousands.

My date location vis-a-vis the dentils strongly suggests to me that it's an 1894-S with the "S" having been effaced. But this could also easily be simply a modern fake, which would be the path of least resistance nowadays.