Copper Morgan Dollar

I know that there are some commonly counterfeited Morgans. Perhaps it was one of those.

There are some copper patterns which look alot like Morgans. If it was in bad shape I doubt it was a pattern. Perhaps a copper plated Morgan? After all it was holed so it could have been plated for jewelery.

http://store.yahoo.net/uspatterns/

I forgot I picked these up a couple years ago. Talking about copper Morgans reminded me of them.



Just don't get too excited cause here's the reverse.

Your right about the Morgan pattern.

With my collecting background - I am suspicious that what you saw may be a simple period forgery. They were very common in copper before the silver prices fell in the early 1890s. A date in the 1880s would be pretty typical. The copper struck coins were made to look a bit worn and were plated or dipped in a silver paint. Some were dipped in Mercury.

You indicated that the coin was holed. That could be a telling feature. It was a common practice for bankers and merchants to drill a hole in coins they believed were forgeries. The old saying that something is not worth a "Plugged nickel" comes from the placing of a hole in a 5 cent coin. Nickel was considered a worthless metal compared to silver and a plugged nickel was doubly worthless.

Any coin with a hole was no longer fit for circulation. So I always look extra hard at coins with drill holes. Before you assume that all holes are intended for jewelry give consideration to the placement of the hole. A hole at top dead center right near the rim might be for jewelry. Traces of wear on the top side might be taken as evidence of use as a pendant. But holes through the date, through the dead center (a favorite of English Banks) or in a location so that the design would not hang right side up are more likely to be cancellations. If the coins also have scratched "X" marks or rim notches - the chances of it being a cancellation increase greatly.

I heard a story from a Banker in Plymouth, Mass years ago who was a 4th generation member of the banking trade. He recalls stories from his grandfather of all coins being weighed and gold coins being valued at weight as opposed to face value. He also related that his grandfather's bank had a ring of counterfeit coins in the head teller's cage. Each coin was drilled randomly and they were kept on a metal ring to assist with identifying forgeries. If you think about it - how else could you tell what a fake looked like - no Xerox back then.

The recently identified micro O forgeries - were actually identified as forgeries as far back as the mid 1970s by a friend of mine in Boston. He attributed them to the period in the early 1900s when silver fell below 30 cents an ounce. No one believed him back then because they were full weight silver and the conventional wisdom was that all full weight silver coins were real. Only recently has the existance of widespread forgery to supply merchants with silver coin for the China trade become known.

So if it is a fake - it may be an early one (before 1890). Drilled to cancel it and thereafter carried by someone as a "lucky" piece. One of my first counterfeit purchases was a drilled 1839 counterfeit 25 cent coin that a friend's grandfather had carried as a pocket piece for many years.