Coinbuf

Taking nice photos is all about lighting, even my almost 10yr old cell phone can take decent pics with good lighting. All of the photos in your op suffer from incorrect white balance, if your camera cannot set the white balance automatically or allow you to do so manually you will have to make adjustments in an editing software. It is not really possible to say much else about those photos until that issue is corrected.

Do you pull the cash from the machines at your work, do you see the reports from the credit card processor for each machine that details how many sales were in cash vs card? You seem to be making the same mistake that many do, you see something, perhaps more than once and you assume that what you see has to be true and that it has to be true across the entire country or society. Just because you see a soda machine with a card reader doesn't mean that machine cannot take cash as well. There certainly could be some machines somewhere that are dedicated card only, but not very many. I have owned and operated my vending machine business since 1996, only about half of my machines have a card reader because some locations do not generate enough revenue to make it financially viable to update and outfit. And I am not alone, there are thousands of small business owners, be it vending machines, coin-op laundry shops, and many others who have cash only machines operating in their businesses. And of those machines which are outfitted with a reader, the card to cash split is roughly 60/40 and has been for the past five years. It takes anywhere from $800 to $1,500 per machine depending on if you need to update the software as well as the hardware to add a card reader. Older hardware and software cannot communicate with the readers in many cases, and in some cases the cost to update is more than the machine may be worth. I recently donated a machine to a church youth group for their rec room because it would have cost more to update that machine than it was worth. Also, there are the monthly costs to operate a card reader, the air charges and the 6% of each swipe that the processing company takes really adds up, the machine owner has to up the prices to cover these costs. However, this can cause a reduction in sales as many people are still reeling from inflation, which makes it even more unprofitable to add a card reader. I service several middle and high schools in my area, and while the younger teachers want a reader on the machine, when I explain how much the prices are going to go up to accommodate that request, the answer I get is almost unilaterally the same, "Oh ok please don't we don't make enough to afford higher prices". As I said its easy for people that do not know the industry to make assumptions because of what they see at the mall, and because of what we observe in our tiny circle of the world, as well as our own personal choices or habits, but those assumptions may not reflect reality. I'm not saying that electronic payments are not becoming more routine, just that it is a mistake to make that determination from observation and assumptions when you do not have access to the data.

Dang, I wonder why I am constantly having to take the change from my vending machine business to the bank if everyone is using cards now, weird.

I think it is a very attractive coin, and I would agree with @Sandon that it appears to have some secondary tone to it. It should look lovely in your album.

Garbage reporting. The job of the US mint is to make coins for commerce, that is its real and true purpose. Somewhere along the line some bonehead decided that it should be a profit center, so now it is. When I took my tour of the Denver mint a few years ago the guide told us that the mint does lose on the cent and nickel, however, what he also said (that goes unsaid by those with an agenda) is that the mint more than makes up for those loses with what is made on the dime, quarter, and dollar coins.

Eye appeal is the most subjective part of coin grading, what you may consider eye appealing may not to many others. You have to decide what is most important to you, color, flashy blast white, deep dark watery fields with contrasting devices, there is no correct answer except what gets you excited when you view a coin. You say you want a Morgan dollar and from your post you seem to have targeted a price of around $200. If it were me I would find the nicest common date with the cleanest cheek and the fewest hits that standout as you view the coin. A coin with a star designation on the label is supposed to have exceptional eye appeal as judged by the individuals that graded the coin, you may agree with that or you may not. A coin with a PL or DMPL designation on the label should be just that, a coin that looks something like a modern day proof coin. Problem is that most lower grade MS PL or DMPL coins will have a significant number (in my opinion) of marks, and the dark watery fields have a way of really making those marks standout and be very visible. CAC is nice if you can find one in your price range, if you are less comfortable in your grading skills the little CAC bean is helpful and tells you that one of the best graders on the planet finds the coin to be better than average for the date/mm/grade. This is the look I find most attractive in a Morgan dollar, MS65 CAC green bean.

Welcome to the coin side! The gold Indian quarter eagle was produced from 1908 to 1929, except for the 1911-D (which is the only year these were coined at a branch mint) and the 1914 all the other years were roughly equal in production. Tough to tell exactly as your photos are at a slight angle and just ever so out of focus, but your coin looks to be in uncirculated condition, MS62 to MS64, I might have a different opinion (up or down) if seen in hand. These coins are not super valuable but have had a nice bump in prices with the recent runup in gold, here is a snapshot of the NGC explorer page showing the guide prices for MS62 to MS64, these are for graded examples so your coin would be less than these numbers as a raw coin. I have also found that the guide is sometimes a bit optimistic compared to what happens in an auction. As to your question on grading, well that sort of depends on what you plan to do with the coin and your personal likes. There is no absolute reason you have to have the coin graded, it can help with liquidity if you plan to sell. If you think you are going to hold onto it I would get a nice Capital Plastic single coin holder and store it in that, those holders are very nice looking and will protect the coin almost as well as a slab.

The photos are much improved, sadly the coin appears to be another counterfeit to me.

Sorry to hear about your problems with this delivery, I have been extraordinary lucky and have not lost a coin due to issues with the post office or any delivery service. I did have one shipment temporarily in limbo but showed up the following day, that was my very first group of coins being returned from CAC which included my 09-SVDB, I would have been sick if that had gone missing.

Above in the replies about the first coin you posted @Greenstang correctly told you that a true aluminum planchet would weigh far less than a normal cent planchet. Did you use that information which was given to you and weigh this coin? If so what does it weigh? What I see in your photo is an environmentally damaged 1991-D (maybe cannot be completely sure of the date due to all the damage) cent. The coin does not show any signs of aluminum corrosion, just a discolored normal copper coated zinc core coin, it is easy to determine that because the coin shows signs of the common plating bubbles that plague the copper coated cents minted after 1982. If you feel you have something else then it is on you to prove your claim, you can start by weighing the coin on a scale that reads at least two decimal places. Secondly, you can perform a specific gravity test to determine the metal, the instructions on how to perform such a test are readily available on the internet.

Databases can get corrupted and digital information does get lost, not an everyday thing but it does happen. I have had a few of my older slabs not show up in both the PCGS and NGC systems, usually a call to customer service is all that is needed to resolve the issue.

This is the same obv that you posted in Jan that @Sandon linked, but here you have a different rev. I don't know if the rev you showed in Jan or this one is the correct one, but I can tell you that there are no wheat stalks on that obv. The obv looks like a stain, however you say that it is not and that there are some ridges or depressions. It may have been a lamination that fell off prior to being struck, but it is in no way a mule. If it were determined and authenticated as a lamination error it would have some value, but you would need to send it into NGC for grading and authentication by submitting it as a mint error.

Mark Goodman absolutely just nailed this photo.

Yes this one has some minor strike doubling, still not a DDO.

So you have four of the most valuable CC mint Morgan dollars, what do you think the odds are that you have genuine coins? I don't see any evidence that any of the coins are genuine.

I see absolutely no doubling of any kind on your coin. And I can guarantee you that you do not have the big one.

The stock photo they use looks "off" to me, a big firm that offers a return option so that is a bonus. My guess is that many/most of the buyers of this item have no clue how to grade and cannot detect if the coin has been bonked or not, thus the glowing feedback.

Everything you have there are just everyday circulated coins, it is not unusual to find nickels from the 60's and 50's that are "shinny" and nice. I have put together several sets of Jefferson nickels dated 1938 to 1964 (except for the 50-D) all from change over the past 20 years, the best set has several very nice AU to MS coins. In addition to those sets I have at least a partial roll of each date (and most mints) also pulled from circulation; yes that includes coins dated from the 30's. Don't ask me why I've saved them, there is no good reason to really, just the collector/hoarder gene in me I guess. I just literally pulled a 1963 from a pile of coins that I have not had time to put into my roll stash that looks just like the 1964 you posted, I get that to a new collector finding a coin that looks that good which is 60 years old seem incredible. But the reality is that if you do some roll searching you will find many like it and likely many older nickels. Nickel is a very hard alloy and these coins hold up well even with heavy circulation.

It looks like one of those fake plastic coins.

Yes no TPG involvement here, but I will say that is a very nice label, someone did put dome effort into the label. No way to verify if it is correct without an in hand exam.

I am in the fake camp also, too much detail from the first strike which should have been struck out on the second strike. Having said that I would suggest that you contact a dealer who specializes in mint errors for a second opinion. Another option is to post this on the PCGS forum and tag "@FredWeinberg", he was the PCGS error expert for decades and is still somewhat active on that forum answering questions on mint errors. If he gives the thumbs up or down you can take that to the bank.

@jimbo27 the obv photo has the same marks and does match the NGC photo. But the rev looks totally different, the sellers lighting is poor and deceptive as the color balance is way off, still I cannot find the die crack running thru the wing into the S of States as well as other marks. The poor lighting may be hiding these, but I would either pass or ask the seller if he posted the wrong rev photo, and if he has additional photos of the rev.