Not So "Common" 1879-S Morgans

Coin on the right is a reverse of 78

Your dealer is not very knowledgeable! Advantage: you! Great coins by the way.

I actually purchased a third coin out of that tray, a 1900-O that probably has an MS65 floor, just really a beauty. Unfortunately not an O/CC which really would've capped this episode off.

Wow that is a great pick. Beautiful coins

Nice coins!

Let me say first I'm not soliciting opinions as to condition. My quickie photos here aren't sufficient for that purpose in any event. That said, I'm pretty confident in my ability to evaluate Morgans as to grade. I critically examined each of these today both in sunlight and my "grading" desk lamp. There remains no doubt that both are uncirculated with original surfaces and no significant nicks or dings.

The Reverse of '78 one has just enough light chatter and superficial scuffing on the obverse for me to assign it a floor of MS63. The one with the DMPL reverse is slightly better in this regard, and I'd call it at a solid MS64. I doubt either would receive a PL annotation, but as I said before both obverses (plus the reverse of the Reverse of '78) are at least semi-prooflike, and thus present extremely well. Frankly, I've seen notably worse than these recently slabbed by both NGC and PCGS as MS64, which I attribute to a current bias in favor of "market" over "technical" grading. Taking that reality into consideration, I really wouldn't be surprised if either of these had a "" or a "" tacked onto the grades I'm seeing them as a surefire bet for, or if they even might get bumped up a whole point, were I to submit them for certification.

I think I read that the 3 bags from the Redfield Hoard account for most of the known uncirculated examples. Who knows if there's another bag or more hidden somewhere.

Since nobody has yet opined on how many of the 1870-S Reverse of 1878 might have been struck, I've continued to cogitate on the question.

I left off last with the unknown factor in the equation, that being how many coins might have been struck with a single set of dies. There're actually some clues to the answer if you look at the lower mintage issues in the history of Morgan production.

The 100,000 of the 1893-S were struck with a single set of dies. Ditto for the 110,000 made at Philadelphia for 1894. The 333,000 of the 1899 appear to have used up three distinct die pairs. So 110,000 wouldn't seem unreasonable for the life span of a die.

What makes that number less than definitive is that practices could obviously vary from year to year and/or mint to mint. There are two identifiable die pairs for the 1889-CC of which 350,000 were made, and three die pairs for the 1895-S and 1895-O of which 400,000 and 450,000 were churned out, respectively. Those three issues suggest that die life might be extended out to something on the order of 133,000 to 175,000 coins. On the other hand, at least five die pairs were used in putting out the 389,000 of the 1893, and three die pairs apparently were consumed in making the 228,000 1885-CC's. That works out to only 75 to 80,000 coins per die pair.

The only conclusion I can draw from all this is that the low end estimates (merely several tens of thousands) for how many 1879-S Reverse of 1878's were struck looks to be wishful thinking and not defensible. A number more like a quarter up to a half million would seem more probable, which actually isn't out of line with the estimate I made above based upon the relative populations of certified specimens.