My Morgan Dollar: Circulation Set
Private
Updated:
5/30/2026
Views: 744
The image to the left was Morgan's first design, that evolved into what was to become the Morgan Dollar. As you can see the obverse's head is similar, and the reverse had an eagle, but the coin was a half dollar, not a dollar. Funny how things grow.
It's cliche to call the Morgans the Grand-Daddy of the Silver Dollars, the Peace Dollars are prettier, the Sitting Liberty fewer, and the Trade Dollars more exotic; but it is the Morgan Dollar that gets the attention from collectors and historians alike.
This is the first set I completed, and it will always be something special to me. Perhaps it will never be competitve, in the sense, that it will be ranked the top set in the category, but it special to me because of all the varieties and the broad sweep of history it represents. Afterall, no all sets have to be number 1, to complete it and cherish it is all that is required in my mind for such an iconic coin. If NGC is to be believed, this set ranked 148 was still valued at almost $128,000 -- that's alot of cherishing in my world.
These big silver coins presented many engineering problems, and dies were being perfected as the process continued. The end result is that there are many varieties of Morgans in 1878 due to die problems, which makes a multitude of VAMs the first year, and then later 1880 there were several and some interesting problems in New Orleans off and on.
My first goal was to complete this set, and I did. Upon completion, I came to understand that those with far greater resources had amassed a far superior gathering of Morgan Dollars. This set will probably never see the top ten in the category, let alone achieve anything like a best in category award. However, that's not really what this set is all about for me. To me, there is something very special about the Morgan Dollar and I just wouldn't be satisfied with my coin collection without significant representation of this coin. There are coins in this set that are very special to me, like the series, so this is a set that is an internal competition for me, something I needed to do because I valued it. Perhaps others wouldn't understand, but its not necessary for them to understand, just as long as I do! The good fight so to speak!
I acquired my first Morgan dollar on my birthday in 1962 and I started this registry set on my wife's birthday, April 30, in 2024 -- 62 years later, how's that for coincidence?
The U.S. Silver dollar was in the beginning of our Republic the spine of our monetary system. Over the years, as our economy grew and changed, so too did our monetary system. The classic book on the subject is by the Nobel Laurate Milton Friedman, and Anna Schwatz, "A Monetrary History of the United States, 1867-1960," Princeton University Press, 1963.
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