The Morgan dollar is a silver dollar that was first minted in 1878. Partially because of its interesting history and variations and partially because of its unusually high content of real silver, the Morgan dollar is one coin that is often found in coin collections of amateurs and professionals alike. Before you start collecting Morgan dollars for their interest or their inherent value, you should know some facts about the coin.
First off, the Morgan silver dollar was actually minted following a major silver rush – one of the largest in history. Because so much silver flooded the market after this rush, the government bought up much of it to mint into the silver dollars, which were named after their designer. Of the millions of Morgan dollars that were minted over a couple of decades, only a few remain because so many of them were melted down for their silver content in the early 1900s.
You should also know where the Morgan dollar was minted. Over time, five different mints created the Morgan dollar: the Carson City Mint, the San Francisco Mint, the Denver Mint, the New Orleans Mint, and the Philadelphia Mint. Valuable and rare Morgan dollars come from all of these mints, but the most valuable normally come from the Carson City Mint. Some of the coins from Carson City were never even circulated.
The beginnings of the Morgan dollar are interesting, as well. Although the people of the United States didn’t really prefer to use the silver dollar, which was almost as big as a palm, the government passed the Bland-Allison Act in 1878, which said that the treasury had to purchase $2 million to $4 million worth of silver each month to mint into coins.
Even as a collector’s item, the Morgan dollar didn’t become popular until the 1970’s, when a rich investor chose to buy up silver dollars. When this man, LaVere Redfield, died in 1974, he had a huge stockpile of Morgan dollars in his basement, which were sold in a public auction for a total of $7.3 million, the greatest coin collecting sale in the world.
Now the Morgan dollar’s lack of early popularity seems ironic, since it is one of the coins that is most traded around the world. Some of the rarest varieties of the Morgan dollar will sell for millions of dollars to numismatics and rare coin collectors, although some of the more common varieties are affordable for even beginning collectors.