Are These Good Purchases?

The 1878 is unremarkable - decent but not outrageous - but the 1879 looks to be a Reverse of 1878 type. Fewer than 2% of 1879-S's used the 1878 reverse, and it's a Top 100 VAM. Yours looks to have a broken "r" in "trust," further narrowing it to a certain few possibilities.

Look here to help you figure it out:

http://terpconnect.umd.edu/~davewang/1879sPAF/

Let's just say that you did pretty good on that one.

COFFEEGOD, I see the 1st morgans you bought, my opinion, the 1878-s is of nice condition and you did good on the price, I also feel it was at sometime cleaned( some people feel this is a NO NO!)The 2nd coin is obviously more worn and that also reflects in the price you paid compared to the 1st, over all I think you, for the $$$$, did well.I would suggest that like MKMAN123 stated, you should , being your new at buying coins like this,MORGANS, buy them in a slab to protect your self from not getting great coins for your hard earned $$$$$.I AM ONLY SAYING THIS BECAUSE I WISH I HAD SOME ONE SAY THIS TO ME YEARS AGO WHEN I BOUGHT MY 1ST MORGAN, BE WELL...PS:I would suggest you pick up some reading material to help guide you and educate your self for the future!!

G'Day coffeegod many years ago two or more people started to give numbers to Morgan and Peace die variations when they had checked ten's of thousands of coins they wrote a book call the Comprehensive Catalog and Encyclopedia of Morgan and Peace dollars these two were Leroy C VAM Allen and A George Mallis they shorten the names to VAM so every Morgan and Peace that has a die error is a VAM (V)an (A)llen and (M)allis regards Harry

coffeegod, believe it or not but you could try your luck at finding VAMs in your local store morgan/peace dollar junk silver pile. Bring along a magnifying glass and a book on Morgan vams with you and spend a few hours looking for them because alot of B&M stores don't check them. They just buy the morgans from people, toss them in the pile and just charge a few dollars over what they paid.

If you can find some, perhaps sell them to fund slabbed morgans in better grades.
If you are going to be spending money on morgans especially paying 25 bucks for raw ones, get a nice slabbed one for a little bit more. When you sell them one day, chances are the store will pay you junk silver price while if you have a graded one they will look through their greysheet and pay you according to the grade.

You can sometimes find hobbyiests and online places selling slabbed ones for 25 for extremely common morgans but for a little bit more you can get a really nice and shiny ms63-64 ones for only 40-50 bucks or more.

Harry, if I was to ask you how many MORGANS you own what would your answer be?
PS: I just thought I would correct the " VAM FATHER'S" NAMES, BE WELL...

Again.....Thanks for all the info. I've taken the resources & started to look @ VAM sites. My wife already hates my hobby as it is. Along with the two I posted, I had also already purchased a few others, including Peace dollars. I might be hooked on these too. Next time you hear from me I might be divorced..... Just kidding..... she actually tolerates it, though has many times stated that she can't justify spending money on more money. That's why I have my......own......ugh.... allowance perse. mkman - I did notice the boxes of loose silver dollars in the coin shop & never thought much about it. When I look for CENTS, the coin shop personnel always sit beside me while I look & I feel rushed. Do you folks have the same problem..... if so, how do you go about just taking your time & looking without having the looking over your shoulder like your gonna steal the box?

Thanks,
Eric