Odd-Looking 1884-O Morgan: Just A Weak Strike?

Interesting. STATES immediately struck me as too delicate.

Overpolished Morgans show other details which your coin does not have. They start losing device details - tailfeathers, inside the wings, detached wreath leaves on the reverse; in front of the eye, and the lowest hair details near the initial on the obverse. If the polishing had reached the point where lettering was becoming thinner, one would think that at least a couple of the "usual" places would show it as well.

Look inside the mint mark for a possible O/O, and check the reeding for overlapping at 3:00 and 6:00 (from the obverse). Also look at the bottoms of the arrowheads for doubling, and the tops of the 1 and first 8. I initially thought about the coin's authenticity, and then noted the very far date and slightly canted 4. These are both relatively uncommon features, but present on a few 1884-O VAM's. It'd be quite the coincidence that the Chinese would end up with one of these as the sample for a counterfeit run.

The denticles are funny in places, as well. I suspect this was a die alignment issue, but authenticity is still in question. Is that a lamination on the reverse between the eagle's left wing and wreath?

Looks O/O to me but I'm no expert.

When I see common-date, circulated Morgans, counterfeit doesn't come to mind unless they look really odd and this coin doesn't look really odd to me.

Looks like an average New Orleans strike, not good but much worse examples are everywhere. I'd grade it AU50 but it could go as high as 55 if someone was liberal and thought the strike was poor.