Silver Dollars & Trade Dollars of the United States - A Complete Encyclopedia
Q. David Bowers
1878 8 TF Morgan: Summary of Characteristics
Business Strikes:
Enabling legislation: As earlier, plus Act of February 28, 1878
Designer: George T. Morgan
Weight and composition: 412.5 grains; .900 silver, .100 copper
Melt-down (silver value) in year minted: $0.89222
Dies prepared:(In addition to the figures given in the present text, the reader may wish to consult the Van Allen-Mallis book for quantities of dies produced during various fiscal years, July 1 to June 30 of the next year; these quantities, taken from Mint reports, do not represent those with specific year dates, but are overlapping.)
Obverse: Unknown; Reverse: Unknown.
Business strike mintage: 700,000 (estimates vary and are highly conjectural)
Estimated quantity melted: Probably very few mint-sealed bags were melted under the 1918 Pittman Act; mixed worn coins were melted, quantity unrecorded.
Approximate population MS-65 or better: 1,000 to 2,000 (URS-12)
Approximate population MS-64: 5,000 to 10,000 (URS-14)
Approximate population MS-63: 30,000 to 60,000 (URS-16)
Approximate population MS-60 to 62: 50,000 to 100,OOO (URS-17)
Approximate population G-4 to AU-58: 125,000 to 250,000 (URS-19)
Availability of prooflike coins: Prooflikes are often such on the obverse only, with the reverse frosty. Two sided prooflike coins are much rarer. Deep mirror prooflike.(DMPL) coins are rarer still. Occasionally, such pieces are offered as Proofs, but they lack the square rims of true Proofs.
Characteristics of striking: Usually fairly well struck. As the eagle has a flat breast, as per the design, to the uninformed observer the breast may appear to be weakly struck, which is usually not the case.
Known hoards of Mint State coins: The Treasury released bags over a long period of years; few if any original mint-sealed bags survive today.
Proofs:
Dies prepared: Obverse: At least 2; Reverse: At least 2.
Proof mintage: 300 to 500 (estimates vary; I like 300)
Approximate population Proof-65 or better: 44+/- (URS-7)
Approximate population Proof-64: 52+/- (URS-7)
Approximate population Proof-63: 70+/- (URS-8)
Approximate population Proof-60 to 62: 145+/- (URS-9)
Commentary
This issue was widely saved by the public. This is the only Morgan dollar issue with eight tail feathers.
Additional Information
Pattern or Prototype Morgan Dollars
These are listed because occasional specimens have shown up in dollar collections as regular 1878 Proofs. The Third Prototype will almost certainly turn up someday in a collection of dollars where it has lain unrecognized for years. The commentary is by Walter H. Breen, for this book:
1878 First Prototype. Three leaves in branch, long dentils both sides, small reverse stars. Very scarce. Dentils nearly touch obverse motto; reverse stars show centers. Proofs only. At least two obverse dies. Breen-5497; Judd 1550. Over 100 struck, the first six on December 5, 1877, others later.
1878 Second Prototype. Three leaves in branch, short obverse dentils, large reverse stars, flat, without centers. Proofs only. Breen-5498; ludd 1550a. Somewhat rarer than preceding.
1878 Third Prototype. Nine leaves, seven (?) feathers, no M's. [3P] Proofs only. Breen-5499; Judd 1552. Struck February 25, 1878, approved March 1. Look at every 1878 Proof offered: somewhere at least one survives without Morgan's initial M on truncation or on ribbon bow. The only one for which I have a pedigree: George W. Woodside:336 (1892), Woodin, Boyd, Farouk. Illustrated in The Numismatist February 1912, page 48. The three original recipients were probably Mint Director Linderman, Coiner O.C. Bosbyshell, and Superintendent James Pollock. A fourth, if any, would have gone to Secretary of the Treasury John Sherman.
"People's Dollar" Wanted (March 1878)
The following notice was copied from an Ohio paper and was quoted in Harper's Weekly, March 9, 1878:
"We do not want a Wall Street silver dollar coined, but a people's silver dollar-a Mississippi Valley dollar-a dollar with an eagle on it, whose right wing shall fan Washington city, while his left wafts the dust along the streets of San Francisco, and his tail spreading over Hudson's Bay, while his beak is dredging the mud islands from the stream between the jetties at South Pass.-Cincinnati Commercial. "
How to Get Dollars (March 1878)
The New York Semi-Weekly Times, March 12, 1878, contained this item:
"HOW TO GET NEW SILVER DOLLARS:
"Washington, March 7. In reply to numerous inquiries as to how the public may obtain the new dollars from the government, Secretary Sherman today issued a circular stating that, for the present, these dollars will be issued only in payment for silver bullion and in exchange for gold coin, dollar for dollar.' Parties desiring silver dollars can obtain them by depositing. gold coin with any Sub-Treasurer of the United States. Numerous applications for the new coins have been received from bankers and others at New York, and one party has already deposited with the Sub-Treasurer at that city $25,000 in gold for exchange in silver dollar pieces. Secretary Sherman thinks that the first 10 million of the new dollars will be issued at par in gold until the new coins become so plentiful that they will have to be issued in the ordinary course of business. They will not be generally disbursed by the depart-ment for current obligations, the secretary not feeling at liberty to use them until the amount coined is sufficient to furnish all alike without discrimination; nor does he deem it expedient at present to exchange them for United States notes, or to use them in payment of the interest on the public debt until the amount coined is sufficient to enable him to do so impartially. The silver certificates will soon be ready for issue, and are of the form of bank notes, engraved in the best manner, and printed on bank-note fibre paper."!