1880 Morgan Dollar

The reverse almost looks PL. If you took these pics with a Droid phone, AWESOME job! What kind of droid, may I ask?
On grading, I'm not sure. MS-61?

I bought this raw yesterday. Wasn't in a hurry to leave the coin store and come home and mow the lawn, so I took my time picking out the best coins I could find from the local coin store's various grade buckets.

My phone is the cheapest Droid model from 2 years ago. I think it is a Droid Razor or something like that. El Cheapo smartphone. I lost my last phone in the river while kayaking, not that that matters.


My method of taking pictures was simple.

I sat on the edge of the front porch under a large tree.

Black sock for a background. Flatness is key with sock placement.

Placed the coin on the sock.

We cut heavy wall cardboard tubes at work to size so there are often end piece scraps. I have about a dozen of these in various heights from 1/2" to 8". I use these stackable tubes to build a base to rest the phone on above the coin and eliminate hand shake. Leave the camera lens overhanging the tubes and above the coin. Watch for shadow. I also have a 2 second shutter delay to eliminate the button press vibration.

You need to build a base of a height that will maximize the coin on the screen without any zoom and with sufficient detail. Once there if you touch the screen, the phone will focus on that point. Focus on a key area of the coin.

You might be able to build a similar base out of soup or pineapple or tuna cans. Pineapple and tuna cans seem ideal to me.

I used an app for the camera instead of the standard. I think it is called open camera. Free as in beer software, has some white balance settings but I just let it go in auto as it detected daylight.

I was pretty happy with the pics honestly. I took about 10 of each side but honestly all 20 pictures were of similar quality, just me playing around with positioning and natural lighting. Color and luster are difficult. Dust is easy but easily overlooked.

I think I see the phone/camera on the bottom of the image and maybe some extra light on the top of the coins. I will probably play around with lighting it again later this lazy Sunday afternoon.

Agree on the hairline issue. Still haven't seen it under magnification though, maybe this afternoon.

Here is me showing my work.

I like the ANA book on grading along with PCGS Photograde. That is my grading technique. Some links for the lurkers just trying to learn.

http://www.amazon.com/Official-Amer...p/0794819931

http://www.pcgs.com/photograde/


Both are great resources, but I like the book better because of the text or reasoning why it is a different grade.

Going to the book, they grade Morgan's basically on 4 categories. They are contact marks, hairlines, luster, and eye appeal.

Consensus of the thread was at most MS64 and at least MS60. Some concern of details for cleaning.

As for contact marks, there are some. Whether the ones in the date are contact marks or cleaning, I didn't see it happen and don't have my coin CSI on quite yet so I will leave that up for debate.

Now per the book to get to 64 the contact marks may only be 'light, scattered marks; a few may be in prime focal areas'. The prime focal area being the face and the fields in the front of the face on the obverse and the eagle breast through wings and fields around on the reverse.

An MS63 coin per the book will have distracting marks in the prime focal fields.

My coin does have contact marks, but I think they are fairly minor. The cheek seems to get the most abuse and I got marks there. Probably limits me to MS63, but it depends if they are distracting or not. No need to argue it though as there are three other elements of grade to evaluate, any of which can limit the total grade.

As for hairlines. I will take the coin out to the front porch with a loop here after this post. To be determined, but I gotta think there are some hairlines for sure, it depends on the degree and the concentration of them for grade but more on that after I take peak out on the porch.

Luster is the third component of grade. Fairly straight forward in the book. MS65 is fully original luster.

MS64 is average / fully original.

MS63 - MS60 are all the same. Luster may be original or impaired.

My coin will cartwheel when twirled. There is some luster to it, in particular on the reverse. The obverse would limit any PL discussion, but that reverse is shiny for sure.

I see no reason to limit the coin for luster in the MS63 or worse grade.

As for eye appeal. It looks good to my eye. I picked it out of the bin for a reason.

The ANA book is pretty specific with eye appeal.

MS65 is very pleasing.
MS64 is pleasing.
MS63 is rather attractive
MS62 is generally acceptable.
MS61 is unattractive.
MS60 is poor.

I say I am in the MS62 to MS63 range on eye appeal.

So now what about them hairlines. I will take a peak later under magnification and add some commentary from the book and observations from the coin later.

Looking like it is in the MS63 - AU details range for sure though.

As for the particulars on this coin, I got it out of a bin of AU grade Morgans (no 21's) at $32.

I am happy with the coin.


Now for the more interesting part to me.

This dealer was low on bin Morgans. Only had about 20 - 25 AU's, maybe about 30 - 35 XF's. He had maybe 80 - 99 raw Morgans in the tray for sale as BU though. Not sure on the price honestly as I was bargain hunting. I want to say they were $40 or $45, but don't remember.

Per the dealer he submits 100+ BU Morgan dollars at a time to NGC. Not 100% on the details, but basically it is $6 per coin and they only slab 63's or higher. They charge more for 64's and even more for 65's.


Putting all this together, I take his AU bin to be coins that came back from NGC as not 63's. I think I grabbed his strongest coins in that bin.

All in, I am very happy with the coin.