1881 S Morgan Dollar

Rotated die, CCW, unless YOU did that on the shoot....

Thank you.

I am going to look up "Rotated die" and "CCW."

I like the joke about the kid swallowing change.

There does seem to be a 'ghost' mark above the letters in "state." As I turn the coin and adjust the degrees of rotation in the light, the other letters never adopt this look and the letters in "state" retain the same 'ghost.' Still, I looked up known rotations on Morgans and no one mentions this year and mint.

Perhaps I will take it to my coin dealer in Couer d'Alene and ask him if he thinks this is a rotation.

It's easy, Coincarrie - with the coin's obverse oriented straight up and down (date at the very bottom), flip it along the horizontal axis (between 9:00-3:00) without rotating it. "In God we trust" should be horizontal. If it isn't horizontal, the die is rotated.

The "shadowing" you see above STATES is a function of the toning the coin has in that area. The pressure of striking a coin literally alters the characteristics of the metal on its' surface, and the area to the outside (nearer the rim) of letters and numbers changes such that it doesn't acquire toning as easily as the rest, just like the surfaces of the letters/numbers themselves. This can be commonly seen on Morgans, and indicates that the toning you see is natural rather than artificial.

Minor rotation is interesting, but fairly common with Morgans and not a value-added thing until it approaches 90 degrees.

This is a nice coin, displaying the excellent strike we would expect from 1881-S. They're available in extremely high grades, though, and yours would probably grade a good MS64 with a shot at 65. The reverse is excellent, and the obverse shows very little excepting a few marks on the cheek. That, unfortunately, is the most critical location on a Morgan for grading purposes, which is why I hesitate to call it 65. But for the cheek, I'd seriously think MS66 territory for this one.

to CCF