Please Educate Me On The 1893-S Morgan

It is the single rarest business strike Morgan, the King of the series and one that most collectors are never able to obtain to complete the set. However, the mintage does not tell the full story of value as the 1894P had a mintage of 110,000 but is only worth ~1/20 as much in MS60. A significant number of 1893-S Morgans were also most likely lost due to Pittman Act melts which were very indiscriminate in nature and caused the skewed values seen in a number of Morgans today.

If I recall correctly, at the time most coin collectors were on the east coast and most only collected by date. So they would probably just get a philly issue and be done with it unlike today where it is by date and mintmark. Also out west, people tended to not have as much faith in paper money as the people on the east coast did. Coins would be regularly seen in commerce. So in general the coins would be worn, damaged, lost, etc. and not be preserved for future generations. In addition to this, we had the panic of 1893. Just like in recent times, many people were forced to spend whatever money they had just to be able to feed their families. I would bet that not too many would be have the money to keep a silver dollar around as that would feed a lot of mouths. Here is a link to site that has the prices of goods from the 1893-1895 period. The prices appear to be from Michigan and not California but it should help put into perspective the value of a dollar back then. http://www.michigan.gov/dnr/0,4570,...99--,00.html
To top it all off, like what biokemist6 said, over 270 million silver dollars were melted under the Pittman act with no regards to date and many more millions in later melts. As you can see not too many would be around today. Usually the ones that I see at local shows and dealers tend to be below fine with the occasional VF or EF. It was only at the ANA in Boston in 2010 that I got see, in person, an MS example for the first time.

Forgot to mention that I think they say in one of the books I have on morgans, this date is most commonly found in VF.

You might want to purchase the Red Book of Morgan dollars by Q. David Bowers. It has a lot of information regarding survival quantities by date and mint mark plus a whole lot more of information. It's a definitely a good reference book if you're looking to purchase a key or semi-key Morgan. I'll read it from cover to cover every so often.

Education: most of us will never own one