How Do You Evaluate Morgan Silver Dollars?
The United States minted Morgan dollars as a circulating coin from 1878 to 1904 and again in 1921. In more recent years, the coin has become a popular collectible, with many examples fetching much higher prices than the silver content of the coin. Evaluating a Morgan dollar is a matter of assessing how rare it is and, more important, its condition–known as its “grade” in coin-collecting parlance. Familiarize yourself with Morgan dollar basics. The coins contain 0.77344 troy ounces (24.057 grams) of silver. In fact, the coin’s entire reason for being is its silver content, since creating it was the U.S. government’s response to the vast production of silver in the West in the late 1800s, not public demand for a dollar coin. That circumstance has a bearing on its status as a collectible today, since demand for the coin was never as high as supply, and thus many Morgans were never circulated–a highly desirable condition for collectors. Determine the exact year and mint mark on your Morg
