Help Me - What Does GSA Refer To?

General Services Administration, a gov't agency that, among other things, puts gov't assets up for bid to the public.

In the 1960's the US Treasury discovered that it was holding a large number (almost three million!) of Morgan dollars, all Uncirculated and almost all Carson City mintages. It was decided to liquidate them thru sale to the public, and the General Services Administration was tasked with conducting the liquidation. They chose the packaging scheme, and conducted sales starting in 1972. There were two batches; the first was judged to be superior coins, and included numbered Certificates of Authenticity. The plastic holder reads CARSON CITY above the coin, and UNCIRCULATED SILVER DOLLAR below. If you're buying, be looking for these. The second group consisted of lesser, but still Uncirculated, coins and did not include a numbered COA. It reads CARSON CITY above, and only SILVER DOLLAR below.

NGC grades these coins while still in the original plastic, and applies a special labeling to the container. The first batch, as described above, generally grades MS63 and better. It should be noted that many of these have been cracked from the GSA plastic over the years for TPG grading, and those remaining in the original GSA packaging will be a sub-group of Morgans which will undoubtedly appreciate at a greater rate than normal.

They currently trade at a premium to "regular" graded Morgans. Not a great premium, and not as great as they will in the future, and "bargains" are to be had. These are a "Strong Buy" in my opinion, if obtained at a good price.

You're quite welcome. It's a fascinating story - where else but the United States could the government "misplace" and forget about seven tons of Silver Dollars?

It was, for a time, very difficult for them to find buyers for GSA Morgans. It took almost ten years to sell them all.

Like this one.

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Jim

It wasn't really a matter of misplacing them. All of those silver dollars in the Treasury vaults were backing the $1 and $5 silver certificates. Since silver certificates were discontinued and FRNs were issued, that metal backing was no longer necessary.

like I said, just because it doesn't say "Uncirculated" doesn't mean its uncirculated, just the GSA didn't label any coin that had toning as Uncirculated but each coin in a GSA slab is Uncirculated. At least I have never seen a AU GSA coin. The certificates for the ones labeled Uncirculated are the same as the ones that are not labeled as Uncirculated