Your coin has quite a long pedigree, having been most recently sold by Legend in October 2015 as lot 355 in the Regency 2 (Coronet, Gulf Coast, Sunnywood) Las Vegas sale, where it brought home $10.5k not including the BP; it's been in some famous cabinets such as Virgil Brand, who acquired it from Peter Gschwend in 1909. Brand's collection first went on the block in the early 80s.
http://legendauctions.hibid.com/lot...&ref=catalogQuote:
Isn't the 1974 aluminum Lincoln also pattern? Why is the Lincoln worth so much more?
A few reasons come to mind.
In the 1800s many trial pieces were issued in a wide variety of metals, for many denominations. You could find coin trials in brass, bronze, aluminum, gold, nickel, "goloid", Feuchtwanger's composition...so on, so forth.
(In 1885 alone, 12 different denomination trials were struck in aluminum, from cent to $20!)
Note that the government had in most cases no plans at all to actually mint aluminum dollars. Most were sold to collectors via the Mint as novelties and curiosities.
By 1974, the last major composition change in Lincoln Cents had occurred in 1945. Due to the longevity of modern coin series, there was not much need for creating pattern coins or trial strikes. Aluminum cent trials were struck in 1942, and a design pattern was struck in 1952.
At least 10 aluminum cents were struck at Philly in 1974, and another 10 at Denver, and a further ~60 in 1975.
These were seriously considered for circulation, and not merely minted as novelties, and they were certainly not considered for sale to collectors.
It is legal to own 1800s pattern coins and trial strikes.
It is not legal to own the aluminum cents in most cases; the Mint considers them "recalled" or "rejected" coins, not patterns. To the best of my knowledge, only two are in private hands. Someone might correct me here.
Ultimately, as a collector, you can purchase a Morgan trial strike fairly easily, despite the scarcities of many types, simply because they were produced for many years. However, it is nearly impossible to (legally) purchase an aluminum 1974
Lincoln Cent.
As a result, the value of the
Lincoln Cent is going to be orders of magnitude higher, because even though more of them may have been struck than the Morgan trials, most were recalled and destroyed, and even fewer of the ones that survived can be legally owned.
That being said, your Morgan is big, beautiful, and almost unique (1 of 2) and pretty much any
Morgan dollar collector would be ecstatic to own such a rare and beautiful piece. I can't say the same about the aluminum
Lincoln Cent.
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That is certainly a beauty.
Posted 09/01/2016 5:39 pm
