Peace Dollar Purchasing Questions

The only "counterfeits" that I have seen of Peace dollars are usually incorrectly dated, so are easy to spot. They come out of China and are considered to be artwork over there, so there is no restriction for them selling. That's where a lot of the other counterfeits come from. If there is a 1964 in the lot, it is 99% sure it is a counterfeit as there were only about 6 of these made.

Grading Peace dollars is not easy, and Red Book tends to overprice the actual market value for these coins. Common Philadelphia dates in lower than AU condition tend to sell for around $12-14. Nice AU coins with some luster and a nice strike tend to sell for around $20. Uncirculated-BU can sell for anywhere between $25-50. It's an unpredictable market. Common dates with mint marks sell for a couple dollars more.

The dates to look for in the lot would be 1921 (these are the High Relief design), 1924S, 1925S, 1927, 1927D, 1927S, 1928 (Key to the series), 1928S, 1934, 1934D, 1934S (Semi-key to the series).

These are not always easy to know if they are cleaned. They do tend to get a flat, milky toning to them if they have been improperly dipped and have retoned. I have seen many of these polished. That is easy to recognize as the entire coin is very, very shiny. There are often a lot of hairlines that can be seen under magnification. Always look for wipe marks (they will tend to go in the same direction) and broken luster in a coin that appears to be Uncirculated. Often you will only see the luster at the edges and the design will not cartwheel, though many of these coins have very poor luster to start with.

Hope this helps you out.

Sorry, I added the cleaning info as you were posting. Take a look at the above post.

Just one thing to add- in circulated grades, the 1928 is the key as mentioned by Susan. In mint state grades, the 1934-S is by far the key due to conditional rarity(low numbers surviving in MS grades). An AU 1928 and an AU 1934-S are about the same price wise ($4-500), but an MS60 1928 is only worth a little more while an MS60 1934-S jumps to almost $1500.

Thank you so much again.
At least i'll know that I have some knowledge going into this.

BTW...there are suppose to be 4 each of the key and semi-key dates.
thanks for the heads up with the 1923 looking like a 1928
and the better grade condition premiums

Wow...i just love this forum...everybody is so nice.

Hi gormang! What follows are my own observations on coins in this series. I have had the opportunity to see a lot of these coins and this is one of the two series I feel very educated and confident about (the other is the Walker series).

I've heard that 1934's are sometimes doctored by adding an "S". This is presumably because the 1934-S is the scarcest coin in grades below 65. This would probably be the only issue in the series that's scarce enough to attract serious counterfeiters. But I've never seen one. Several of the others in the series are rare in gem and above, and are much more expensive than a 34-S in the same condition - the 28-S in MS64 is around $1,200-1,500 retail. An MS65 is worth over $20,000. I'm sure doctoring has been done with other issues, but the expense it would take to make a good counterfeit would outweigh the benefit on most.

If a Peace dollar has been scrubbed, it looks, well, scrubbed; if wiped, it will show hairlines in the fields. If it has been dipped, it will show a white flashy color that looks more like headlight glare than luster. Sometimes a coin that was cleaned awhile back retones and can present a pleasing appearance. If you don't care about whether it would grade at PCGS, such coins are very nice to fill slots in an album. I've seen some lovely 34-S's that had shown signs of a past cleaning. BUT, watch out if you do want only problem-free coins. The vast majority of 34-S's selling on ebay are improperly cleaned and will not grade.

Mint state Peace dollars are notoriously hard to grade. So many of these coins never made it out of the bags they were stored in. Since this coin is so large, it's a bagmark magnet. More marks are allowed on this series than on smaller coins. In my experience, what most offends the grader's eye are marks on the bust. A nick on the nose ot chin could turn a 65 into a 63. If the marks are distracting enough, it will be called AU. I advise buying only certified coins in this series.

In addition to luster, look at the strike. This will be most discernable in the lock of hair above the eye-brow (should be full and separate from the forehead), the hair around the ears and the truncation of the neck on the obverse; on the reverse, look for three main tiers of feathers (a mini 4th tier is seen above the three near the eagles shoulder on especially well struck coins) on the folded wings, feather definition in the eagle's neck, and a strong E PLURIBUS UNUM. Many many many of these coins were poorly struck, so graders tend to value luster over strike.

I just wanted to thank everyone again.
and I thought I'd share some pics.

I know they are not in great shape.

The biggest problem by far is finding a 1928 that is actually a 1928-S with the mintmark removed. There are also some 1934-S coins with added m/m, as someone noted. The 1921 is not easily faked, and is common enough that the only fakes around are struck counterfeits.

Perhaps more importantly is that you be very careful about how you price these coins for purchase. Greysheet is MUCH too high for typical coins (MS-60 and below). I recommend you offer only about 80% of greysheet, which is a realistic wholesale value.