Amateurs to the coin collecting world may be baffled when looking at a Morgan dollar price chart simply because there is so much variance in the prices of these coins. Why, they might ask, would one year make such a huge difference in the price of a coin? For that matter, why would one grade point make a coin worth hundreds or thousands of dollars more than it would had it been graded differently? There are many different variables that make a particular coin worth more or less than another, and, interestingly enough, all of those variables come into play when you’re talking about your average Morgan dollar.
One of the main things that makes a coin worth more than any other is scarcity. As long as there is some desire for a particular coin among collectors, it will be worth much more if it is scarce. In the case of the Morgan dollar, scarcity comes into major play. This coin was minted for several years and was minted very steadily. However, a few years after minting stopped, Congress passed a law requiring the Treasury to melt down about 270 million coins for their silver content.
Most of those coins were Morgan dollars, which had a high percentage of silver in them. Because of this, the Treasury took bags and bags of coins that had been stored in vaults and simply melted them down, wiping out nearly entire years or mintmarks. This means that some varieties of the coin are quite rare, while others are very common, simply because so many of them were minted and because certain years and mintmarks escaped the meltdown frenzy.
In addition, there are many varieties of Morgans that exist because of mint-made errors. Basically, these happen when there is something wrong with the die used to make the coins or with the minting process itself. The coins that were made with errors are even rarer than others, simply because the problems were usually caught and fixed before many of the coins were minted. It’s interesting, but in the world of coins, one man’s mistake can definitely become another man’s fortune.
Another major key in the value of a coin in general, or a Morgan dollar in particular, is grading. This is basically the certification that a coin is in a particular type of shape or shows so much wear. Because they were so unpopular with the public, many Morgans were circulated from bank to bank for major transactions, meaning they have very little wear. Because of this, even coins that look great can be worth a lot less than the rare coins that are truly in mint condition. One grade point can make a huge difference for the value of a Morgan dollar.
As with other coins, the prices of Morgan dollars can be quite variable. This is one of the major reasons that you have to know exactly what you’re buying before you purchase a Morgan.
