Q. David Bowers
Casting-Lost Wax Process
The lost wax method is an ancient casting method that produces a reasonable facsimile of the original. The copy of the original is made in wax in a mold of a disposable material such as plaster. This wax copy is then sealed into a mold plaster with two or more straws touching the copy and extending to the outside.
The straws are removed forming the casting ports. The entire mold is then heated until all the wax has melted out of the mold. This leaves us an evacuated plaster mold which now can be filled with molten metal, cooled and broken to extract the metal coin.
Diagnostics of Cast Counterfeits:
1. May have low specific gravity
2. May be out of weight tolerance
3. Slightly smaller diameter
4. May not have a ring of sustained sonority
5. Loss of fine detail
6. Casting ports may show on edge
7. Surface may show bubbling
Date and Mintmark Alterations
These types of alterations seem to have enjoyed a golden period in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Most of the alterations we see here at the American Numismatic Association Authentication Bureau originated from this time period.
The intent of these alterations is to increase the value of a common coin by changing some key device to give it the appearance of a much scarcer coin.
In most cases of date alterations, just one digit (usually the last) is changed, although here at ANAAB we have seen coins where the date has been completely removed, then another added.
Usually dates are changed by the movement or removal of metal from the original digits. An example as provided by a 1910 Liberty Head nickel altered to resemble a rare 1913. The 0 in the date has its left side removed, the right side indented, and on the inner right side metal is added to form a false "3."
An example of a removed digit replaced by a digit foreign to the coin is found in the 1800-1803 dollar. The fourth digit in the date of such a coin is completely removed, and a "4" added in its place, thus creating what seems to the uninitiated observer to be a rare "1804."
Mintmark additions to Philadelphia Mint coins are the most common of mintmark alterations. These mintmarks are almost always produced new, rather than taken by removing them from genuine mintmarked coins. In the dollar series, fake "1893-S" dollars are sometimes made by adding a spurious S to a Philadelphia Mint 1893 dollar.
Mintmark removal can be difficult to detect.
There is almost always a trace of tooling in the mintmark area on removals. Altered coins can be whizzed or cleaned in order to hide evidence of tooling or sloppy workmanship. In the dollar series, a rare "1895" can be made by removing the S from an 1895-S, or a rare 1901 can be made by taking the O from a 1901-O. There are many other examples that could be mentioned.
Many such alterations have general characteristics which are indicative of the specific mint they are from. For instance, an 1889 Philadelphia Mint dollar is different in appearance from an 1889-CC; the Philadelphia coin will generally have a flatter strike and rounded rims, whereas CC mint dollars have squared off rims and consistently sharper details. Thus, an "1889-CC" dollar that shows flatness of strike and rounded rims is a candidate for close examination to see if it has been altered from an 1889 Philadelphia coin.
Spurious Coins to Watch For
The following listing of counterfeit and altered coins represents the majority of recorded spurious silver dollar dates seen by experts here at the American Numismatic Association over the last 10 years. Obvious counterfeits, such as poor castings, were not recorded:
From Transfer Dies: 1799, 1896-O, 1922.
From Spark Erosion Dies: 1881-CC, 1885, 1885-CC.
Castings: Dates 1795 to 1804; all Gobrecht dollar dates; 1889-CC, 1893-S, and 1894 Morgan dollars; various trade dollars.
Alterations: Dollars dated 1800 through 1803 altered to 1804; Carson City dollars from 1880-CC through 1885-CC altered to 1889-CC, 1898-S altered to 1893-S.
Mintmarks added: Philadelphia Mint dollars with added spurious mintmarks so that they resemble these Liberty Seated dollars: 1870-S, 1871-CC, 1872- CC, 1873-CC, 1873-S; and these Morgan dollars: 1879-CC, 1880-CC, 1881-CC, 1883-S, 1884-S, 1885-CC, 1886-O, 1889-CC, 1893-S, 1896-O, 1897-O, 1903-O, 1903-S, 1904-S; Peace dollar: 1934-S.
Mintmarks removed: Branch mint coins with mintmark removed to give the appearance of being a rarer Philadelphia Mint coin of the same date, to resemble these Morgan dollar issues: 1894, 1895, and 1901; this Peace dollar: 1928; and this trade dollar: 1878.
Historical Prices
Introduction
The following auction descriptions, advertisements, and fixed-price catalogue listings-selected to be representative of their eras and also to reflect some of the major collections-show the progress of market prices in the Morgan dollar series over a long period of years. As will be seen, most silverdollars of this type had nominal values during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Collecting Morgan dollars did not become popular in a large way until the 1940s and 1950s, and especially after the Treasury releases of 1962-1964.
Prices have always been inconsistent, both in auctions and in fixed-price offerings. The record shows that of ten' a given Morgan dollar in a particular grade would be offered at, for example, $6.00 by one dealer, $4.95 by another, and $8.00 by a third, while one in an auction might bring $5.00 and another, $10.00.
The 1895's Morgan dollar furnishes a microcosm of the dilemma I faced when compiling historical prices for, this book. Coin valuations have always been erratic, despite claims and hopes to the contrary. Put simply, it is not possible to factor such diverse considerations as supply, demand, grading differences, and aesthetics to create a single price that an Uncirculated 1895-S, for example, was worth in 1905, 1910, 1915, etc. Thus, the prices in the present volume often represent trends rather than specific benchmarks.
Historical prices for the 1895-S Morgan dollar include $1.80 for a coin described as Fine, appearing in Ed. Frossard's auction of March 8, 1898. It is hardly conceivable that three years after it was minted, an 1895-S could have worn down to what we call Fine grade today; presumably, it was more like EF or AU. Listed grades of years ago; indeed, even as recent as the early 1980s, are virtually impossible to directly translate to the grading interpretations we know today.
In July 1904, an 1895-S dollar catalogued as EF fetched $1.35 in the Chapman brothers sale of the Barker Collection. In November 1905, two Uncirculated coins in the Hoch Collection sold by Lyman H. Low fetched $1.00 (face value!) and $1.20 respectively. In September 1909, an Uncirculated specimen in Low's Rose Collection auction went for $3.00. In May 1910, in Ben G. Green's auction of the Loer Collection, a Mint State 1895-S went to a new home for $1.20. In February 1921, dealer John Zug advertised a Fine coin for sale for $2.50 in The Numismatist, while in May 1921, a few months later, an Uncirculated coin in B. Max Mehl's Manning Collection sale brought $1.20. In the same dealer's sale of the Marcuson Collection, October 1935, a prooflike Uncirculated piece fetched $1.20.
As noted, it is difficult to make much of such diverse numbers! However, general trends can be observed, and in the case of the 1895-S, an Uncirculated specimen was generally worth less than $2 until the early 1940s, and it was not until the 1950s that it emerged as a key issue.
There are some surprises among the following listings. Did you know, for example, that during the early twentieth century, numismatists considered the 1889-S to be the rarest Morgan dollar issue? Its price was multiples of such other varieties as 1893-S and 1895! This was news to me until I did research for this book.
Market values for common Morgan dollars were affected strongly by the rise in price of silver billion during the years 1965-1980, especially 1979-1980 the escalating values of worn, common dollars Were primarily due to this factor, not to increased numismatic demand.