You might be a seasoned reseller sifting through coin stacks. Or you might be clearing out a loved one’s home and you find this shiny pile of coins.
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Maybe you even saw a YouTube video and went hunting for change. In any case, how can you identify the most valuable Morgan Dollars? We’re here to help you out with proven sales stats plus some reselling tips. Enjoy!
Most Valuable Morgan Dollars
1. 1889 CC Morgan Silver Dollar
When you first spot a Morgan Dollar, you might think it’s from Canada, the UK, or some other commonwealth country. Why? It has a queenly lady on the top, so it must be from one of the (former) monarchies. But Morgan Dollars are All-American and can be worth a lot.
- Year: 1889
- Mint Mark: CC – Carson City
- Value: $280,000
These dollars were minted between 1878 and 1904. The coins were discontinued until 1921 when they were in circulation for just one year. Another hundred-year hiatus followed before the commemorative Morgans issued in 2021. Annual releases are set to resume in 2023.
2. 1892 CC – Morgan Silver Dollar
Apart from the year, you can also use a magnet to test your coin. Fake Morgan Dollars often have traces of iron while authentic coins are 90% silver and 10% copper. So if your coin reacts, it’s counterfeit. Try using an app to spot fakes. Precious Coin Tester works fairly well.
- Year: 1892
- Mint Mark: CC – Carson City
- Value: $8,500
But if you plan to go all-in on coin reselling, it can be useful to buy an electronic coin verifier. They can be expensive – around a thousand dollars. But considering genuine coins can sell for several thousand, it’s worth spending one or two on equipment and valid appraisal fees.
3. 1895-S Morgan Dollar
But before we get lost in the world of fake-outs, let’s talk about the originals. First off, who’s that royal lady on the obverse? (That’s the industry term for ‘heads’.) Is it Lady Liberty? In a way. The original Statue of Liberty was designed by The French and given to us as a gift.
- Year: 1895
- Mint Mark: S – San Francisco
- Value: $25,300
That famous figure was sculpted by Frédéric Bartholdi and engineered by Gustave Eiffel. (Yes, it’s that Eiffel!) The statue was based on Libertas, the Roman goddess of liberty. But our version on the Morgan Dollar was modeled on philosopher Anna Willess Williams.
4. 1893 S Morgan Silver Dollar
Who is this lady and how did she end up on the coin? Well, she had previously posed for Thomas Eakins, so she came highly recommended. She was a fairly private person though and was uneasy about this famous commission. She didn’t want to be identified or exposed.
- Year: 1893
- Mint Mark: S – San Francisco
- Value: $550,000
Eventually, she agreed to do five sittings with the sculptor, as long as he didn’t tell people who she was. It didn’t work. Everyone ended up knowing her name, and she was offered acting jobs after the fact. But she preferred to remain within education and administration.
5. 1882 O Morgan Dollars: O Over S Early Silver Dollars
Next question – why is it called a Morgan Dollar. George T. Morgan is the man who designed the coin. He was the Assistant Mint Engraver, and it was his job to put Anna on the coin. For the back of the coin, he chose an eagle with its wings spread, a symbol of power and freedom.
- Year: 1882
- Mint Mark: O – New Orleans
- Value: $45,576
Mint marks are a big thing in the coin space, so you’re probably looking for one. Not all Morgan Dollars have them, but if yours does, it’ll be on the reverse (tails). Check the word ‘dollar’. The mark should be in the middle of D and O, but slightly above the two letters.
6. Complete 11 Coin Set GSA Hard Pack Morgans
Why were Morgan Dollars restricted to the specific years we listed? It has a lot to do with the laws regarding silver, so you’d have to follow up those legalities. Focus on the Free Silver (1800s), Coinage (1873), Bland-Allison (1878), and Sherman Silver Purchase (1890) Acts.
- Year: 1879 to 1891
- Mint Mark: CC – Carson City
- Value: $28,500
These acts controlled how and when silver coins could be minted. The Free Silver policy meant miners could take their ore to mint and have it coined for peanuts. Later acts forced the government to buy set amounts of silver from miners every month, or as a bulk purchase.
7. 1894-O Morgan Dollar
The government’s Sherman Silver cache ran out in 1904, so they stopped making Morgan Dollars. Then the Pittman Act (1918) re-instituted silver coins, and the Morgan Dollar came back in 1921. It lasted half a year before the coin design was changed to the Peace Dollar.
- Year: 1894
- Mint Mark: O – New Orleans
- Value: $40,000
But if the Act passed in 1918, why did they wait three years to release a new Morgan Dollar? Well, towards the end of WW I, the UK needed silver badly. So we melted tonnes of silver coins and sold them across the pond a $1 per ounce. It was a key contribution to our allies.
8. 1887 O Morgan Dollars: 7 Over 6 Early Silver Dollars
The state of silver (and its regulation) also led to the coin shortage of the 1960s. Ironically, this shortage was triggered by Morgan Dollars. At this time, silver shot up in price, so if you melted your coins, they were worth more than their face value. So people started hoarding.
- Year: 1887
- Mint Mark: O – New Orleans
- Value: $30,724
Let’s do the math. While the rarest Morgan Dollar is the 1895, typical coins weigh 26.73g. 90% of that is pure silver. Today’s market price is 70 cents per gram, about $17 for a $1 coin. A hundred coins from the bank are worth roughly $1,700 – for a stack that only costs $100!
9. 1895 O Morgan! Ultimate Pl+++ Ultra Proof Like! King of All Kings
Let’s take a step back and understand this a little better. A coin is made of metal, yes? And it has a number on it (e.g. $1, 50 cents, etc.) that tells you what it’s worth. This is called the face value, and it’s standardized by the government. But coins also have a market-rate melt value.
- Year: 1895
- Mint Mark: O – New Orleans
- Value: $10,200
Melt-value is the cash price of the precious metal from melted-down coins. During the 60s, it was higher than the coin’s face value, so people stashed the coins as a form of physical silver aka silver stacking. How did Morgans cause this? A batch of the unreleased coins popped up!
10. 1893-O Morgan Dollar
Considering no Morgan Dollars had been minted since 1921, this treasure trove was worth its weight in silver, which is why people started buying and hiding them. The Mint made more coins to fill the gap, but citizens kept stockpiling. In the end, the government jinxed silver.
- Year: 1893
- Mint Mark: O – New Orleans
- Value: $115,000
They did this by releasing clad coins (silver plus other metals) with lower melt values. This eventually solved the problem until silver prices balanced out. Today, Morgan Dollars are valued for their historical and collectible quality, not just the amount of silver they contain.
11. 1893-S Morgan Dollar
The Treasury started selling Morgan Dollars as collectibles in the 1970s. Before then, citizens routinely exchanged their hoarded silver coins for silver certificates at the National Treasury. These currency certificates counted melt value, not face value, so they were worth more cash.
- Year: 1893
- Mint Mark: S – San Francisco
- Value: $12,250
When the coin shortage peaked, the government stopped issuing these certificates and switched over to the clad coins we’ve just mentioned. Many of the Morgan Dollars on the market are from those sales in the 70s, though you may find a few your grandma hid in her hem.
12. 1879 CC Morgan Dollar bu63 Rare Date
You might be curious about how those silver certificates worked. Well, instead of melting your hidden silver dollars (which was a lot of work – and possibly illegal), you could go to the Treasury and hand them over. You received a certificate that counted as valid paper money.
- Year: 1879
- Mint Mark: CC – Carson City
- Value: $7,900
In theory, you could buy and sell stuff with it. But in practical terms, you would swap it for its stated value in Morgan Dollars. In 1968, you could even trade the certificate for raw bullion. Bullion is an official government-issued coin that’s worth its melt value, not its face value.
13. 1893-S Morgan Dollar
Logically, you can make more money reselling Morgan Dollars that were coined for a limited time. So 1921s and 2021s should do well. That said, lots of people kept these coins, so they’re fairly easy to find, and that lowers their value. Instead, look for years with less than a million.
- Year: 1893
- Mint Mark: S – San Francisco
- Value: $300,000
For reference, Morgan Dollars were issued in batches anywhere from under a thousand in 1895 to over 80 million in 1921. Check the Red Book to see how many coins were released in a given year, complete with their source mint, denomination, and other numismatic details.
14. 1880-S Morgan Silver Dollar: Looks like a Branch Mint Proof/Surreal Toning
Incidentally, the Denver mint only released Morgan Dollars in 1921, so you’ll never find a D Morgan Dollar from any other year. That said, before the 2021 commemorative coin, Morgan Dollars were coined in Denver, Carson City, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and New Orleans.
- Year: 1880
- Mint Mark: S – San Francisco
- Value: $1,111,111
New Orleans coins were marked O, while CC was for Carson City. Keep any CC coins you bump into, they’re extremely rare! All the collectibles that the Treasury sold in the 1970s were all from the Carson City mint. The other two mint marks are D and S, like other coins.
15. 1901 Morgan Silver Dollar
A trick resellers sometimes use is to buy coin rolls from the bank and carefully inspect them for gems. You can sometimes find a precious rarity in there, but you’d have to know what to look for. So if you find a coin stamped 1893 or 1895, hold onto it – they’re hard to come by.
- Year: 1901
- Mint Mark: None (Philadelphia)
- Value: $425,500
1895s are rare because less than a thousand proofs were made in Philadelphia. Older Philly coins had no mint marks, so that’s how you spot them. Also, as you sift through coin rolls (or goodwill coin batches), look out for CC Morgans from 1889, unmarked 1901s, and 1903 Os.
16. 1882-S $1 PCGS/CAC MS68+ Tied for Finest! – Morgan Silver Dollar
Contemporary coins might be marked P for Philadelphia or W for West Point. But you’ll never find these mint marks on Morgan Dollars, so it’s a handy way to spot a fake. You can easily find S-marked Morgan Dollars from the San Francisco mint in circulation though.
- Year: 1882
- Mint Mark: S – San Francisco
- Value: $19,106
Check the ‘sold items’ tab on online auction sites. It’s a good place to look up current rates for the most valuable Morgan Dollars. But eBay only lists sales from the last 3 or 4 months to keep prices accurate. Offline, the Red Book we mentioned earlier is a good pricing resource.
17. 1884-S Morgan Dollar
Take time to get familiar with industry jargon. Simpler language is clearer, but when you’re dealing with high-end traders, they’ll assume your use of ‘normal words’ means you don’t know what you’re doing. On that note, you might hear someone calling this coin a cartwheel.
- Year: 1884
- Mint Mark: S – San Francisco
- Value: $149,500
Morgan Dollars got this nickname because they were bigger than other coins in circulation at the time. And while they all featured Anna W. Williams as Lady Liberty on the obverse, the Mint produced a total of eight slightly different Morgan Dollar designs (e.g. her hairstyling).
18. 1893-S PCGS Genuine Cleaned-XF Detail Morgan Silver Dollar
What’s so iconic about George Morgan and his dollars? Well, he was only 30 when he was hired for a 6-month ‘internship’, and he came highly recommended by experts at the UK Royal Mint. When he was commissioned to redesign the dollar, he took it quite seriously.
- Year: 1893
- Mint Mark: S – San Francisco
- Value: $8,400
He even went back to school! He studied at the Fine Arts Academy in Pennsylvania and spent a lot of time looking into bald eagles. He shifted the coin landscape and played on patriotic sentiments by putting an American face on the standard Greek profile. It worked!
19. 1901 P Morgan Silver Dollar MS62 PCGS
You’re in the coin selling space now, so you’ve probably heard a lot about professional coin grading and evaluation. You may not think it’s worth it when you have the Red Book, eBay, a testing device, and even free apps! But it might help to understand the process a little better.
- Year: 1901
- Mint Mark: None – Philadelphia
- Value: $6,900
Casual collectors might go for something that looks old and worn because it feels cooler. But top collectors – the ones that readily pay thousands of dollars for a single coin – will want uncirculated coins in MS or XF, complete with a slab and certification from the appraiser.
Tips for Reselling the Most Valuable Morgan Dollars
The coin trade can seem deceptively simple, but here are some pro tips to try:
- Sell low-quality coins to silver stackers at the current market price.
- For coins that seem premium, it may be worth getting them graded.
- Double-check the coinage years and mint marks to help you catch a fake.
- If you’re looking for comps online, use ‘sold’ listings instead of open auctions.
- Consider the date of the sale. Last month’s $500 coin might be barely $50 today!
Any additional tips about the most valuable Morgan Dollars? Tell us in the comments below!
Related posts:
- 1879 Morgan Silver Dollar Value: are “CC”, “O”, “S”, No mint mark worth money?
- 1898 Silver Dollar Value: Are “O”, “S”, No Mint Mark Coins Worth Money?
- 1878 Morgan Silver Dollar Value: are “CC”, “S”, “No” Mint Marks Worth Money?
- 1896 Silver Dollar Value: are “P”, “S”, “O”, No mint mark worth money?
- 1978 Silver Dollar Value: are “D”, “S”, No mint mark worth money?
- 1901 Silver Dollar Value: are “O”, “S”, No mint mark worth money?
- 1902 Silver Dollar Value: are “O”, “S”, No mint mark worth money?
- 1926 Silver Dollar Value: are “D”, “S”, No mint mark worth money?
- 1795 Silver Dollar Value: are they worth money?
- John Adams Dollar Coin Value: are they worth money?
