EagleRJO

The 1921 Morgans are also notoriously poorly struck coins, just like the 2021 Morgans (and some early date Philly Morgans). I would be willing to bet the family ranch VKurtB is talking about poor quality compaired to one's produced up to the turn of the century.

Popular with collectors in general from what I have read and a mint supervisor told me ("inundated with complaints" paraphrasing), and agreed with a needed improvement in quality. You might be right there. 😉

Great, so they should have planned it out better for a lower base of less desireable items, instead of putting the janitor in charge of production scheduling and planchet ordering, which resulted in failing to meet statutory ASE production and complete cancelation of the popular Morgans.

And the Red Book has a listing of the various combinations of obverses and reverses, which can vary by year/mint. for the periods Trade Dollars were struck. 😉

It’s amazing how many SUPPOSED 1982-D small date copper cents are road rash / parking lot coins. Or hidden is bank bags of pennies like these at 3x face value, $110 mark-up, plus shipping. 😉

Right, there is no minimum, so you reduce those.

Okay so given a fixed amount of silver. and therefore blanks they can order, you simply reduce the number of other commemorative or special silver coins and medals that are not mandated like the ASE and are less popular, and increase production of ASEs as mandated and also produce the more popular Morgans. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy. 😉

Just a quick observation, don't people usually block out the cert numbers when posting on forums or in the registry sets to keep what they actually own to themselves? You have to enter a cert # when entering a coin in the registry, but that may not be public.

If you look closely the ribbon also continues down slightly past the first joint on Libertys' pedestal consistent with a type-2 obverse, instead stopping at that joint as with an earlier type-1 obverse. But I don't think the ribbon position actually changed from earlier to later date Trade Dollars, it looks like just the joints on the pedestal were changed leading to the different position of the ribbon end. I think a more telling difference between the earlier and later date Trade Dollars is the reverse, with the latter ones like that being discussed having a clutched arrow tip over the "2" (instead of over the "0") in 420 as well as no berry branch under the eagles' claw on the right side.

I agree the statutory requirements for the ASE production are ridiculous, and I don't fault the US Mint for ignoring that. However, the US Mint is not completely blameless in not meeting those requirements (however ridiculous) as well as making bonehead decisions to cancel entire runs that are very popular like the Morgans. At the same time, they are maintaining or not reducing other higher-margin silver programs, which do not have statutory production requirements or are not as popular. And then there are the serious quality issues with some of their products lately, discussed in multiple recent threads, which lands squarely on their lap.

If you are going to collect coins you should at least have a copy of the Official Red Book which is really not much money (library too) and includes basic info on specific coin types by year, mintages (just an indication of availability) and ballpark prices for a coins' grade/condition. There are also many good resources on the NGC and PCGS websites like grade guidelines, populations, coin values, recent auction prices, etc. I mentioned you might find a book at a "library too" ... you know that local town or county building that usually has a lot of books you can read for free.

Well, somebody picked it up that I was just kidding with it being a 1916(P) DDO, as that would be a rare find [$5,000 for G4]. I think CoinJockey had a little idea when he did a double take on the date posted. The date is actually totally obliterated and unreadable.

That actually isn't bad at all for a penny almost 80 years old that was still in circulation! 😉

Man, why can't I find quarters like that? Some ppl have all the luck! 😉

1916 from under the scope, no visible mint mark I could see.

Hmmm, good thing that "precision" is in the "ball-park", and kind of what I was definitely thinking maybe. 🤔

Looking at the ANA standard as a conservative reference, and comparing to some CoinFacts examples, the focus is at the high points which are: the head/hair, shoulder, left breast, kneecap, and wheat behind the seat on the obverse; and then the eagles' head and upper part of the wings on the reverse. It's not the best photo but making various changes with imaging software brings various areas more into focus, at the loss of some other elements, which is hard to show. So, it may just be somewhat blurry/poor pictures not revealing that much detail, and why I was thinking XF+ to AU. But without better pics or having it in hand to look at closely and take additional pics to post its hard to convey what I am seeing with the software. Also, are you aware of any online references that discuss the chop marks for these Trade Dollars in more detail?

That would be very interesting to check out. Maybe some others who are into Trade Dollars might chime in.

For me chop marks gives the coins a little history or backstory, since the circulated ones were commonly used in Asia to buy things for trade, as long as the chops are not overdone. I have seen some that bend the coins, cause raised surfaces on the opposite side, and sometimes completely obliterates the devices which I don't like. To me those really are damaged or impaired.

That is still a pretty nice dime for being almost 60 years old. But the pics get kinda blurry if you try to enlarge to look for marks/scuffs. Have you tried going to CoinFacts and compare the coin in hand under magnification to the example grading pics for that coin, like the attached for an MS? 1965 10C (Regular Strike) Roosevelt Dime - PCGS CoinFacts (www.pcgs.com/coinfacts/coin/1965-10c/5130) Also, I don't see anything at the "L" and the "C" and "A" are supposed to touch.

Actually, that is not the case. If you look at say Saints over $10k on well know auction sites like Great Collections and Heritage Auctions that are either for sale now or have been sold in recent years they are almost all in the newer generations of NGC and PCSC slab holders, with just a smattering of older holders (like OGH labels with the CAC stickers as they prolly didn't want to re-submit and maybe loose the marketing gimmicks ). And that makes sense too. If I had a very rare/expensive coin in an older holder and grading standards had more recently changed, with many coins grading higher with that change which could mean a lot more money for my coin, you are damn straight I would be submitting it to a top TPG for re-grading before I would sell the coin. Forget about 50 years, who was JA again?

I find some trade dollars interesting, particularly ones with chop marks which are not overdone or bend the coins, so I have been trying to grade/value some I see and watch what they go for or possibly make an offer on one if it looks pretty good. The attached doesn't have much wear (I know it's not the best pics), so I was thinking it would be an XF+ or AU, and more likely an AU with possibly a light cleaning in the past as many of these older coins have had. What do you guys think?

As a newer avid collector (previously just pocket change and roll hunting) I recently purchased a copy of the Coin World Almanac (in addition to the Red Book and ANA Grading Standards which I have), initially because it has tables with mint specifications and tolerances for US coins starting with 1793 to check out coins I am interested in or have purchased to review (weights, diameters, thickness, composition, etc.), but I am finding it a really good book about coins in general. Also since grading coins is so important, I would add the "Official Guide to Coin Grading and Counterfeit Detection" 2nd Edition. And for specific coins Bowers writes an excellent series of books on various types of coins as a companion to the Red Book, and I really like his (Official Red Book) Guide Book of Morgan Silver Dollars since I am working on a complete set of those coins.

It's kind of expected that it will happen. Btw, what is the verdict on the Mankiller coins? Damaged as it appears?

Okay, here is my next 3-coin addition to the road rashed "Good, Bad and Ugly" Parking Lot Coin Set with 1964(P), 2014-P and 1916(P) DDO nickels ... I am still working on dimes and quarters (have one or 2 "winners") but have not found ANY half dollar or dollar coins. I think those are gonna be tough and take some time.