Morgan Dollar Values

I avoided doing a Morgan Dollar value guide for a long time, because Morgan Dollar prices don't fall into the same easy categories that most other coins do. For one thing, many dates of Morgan Dollars never circulated much in commerce because they sat in government vaults for 60 to 80 years, only seeing the light of day when speculators and collectors began withdrawing them from the Treasury Dept. in the early 1960's. Since my coin value charts are meant to be very user-friendly to the average non-collector who just wants to know whether his coins are rare, and how much a coin dealer would pay for them, I usually price the coins in "average circulated condition." For Wheat Cents, this is approximately VG-8. For Lincoln Memorial Cents, this is around EF-45 to AU-50. But for the Morgan Dollar, there is no "average circulated grade" to go by.

Another challenge for doing the Morgan Dollar value guide was how to handle VAMs. VAMs are the highly-collectible die varieties identified in the seminal book The Comprehensive Catalog and Encyclopedia of Morgan and Peace Dollars (the so-called "VAM book.") Some VAMs are very important varieties acknowledged by the Red Book and leading grading services, but did I want to try to explain them to non-collectors just looking for quick value estimates? In the end, I decided to leave them out of the chart, but mention them in passing. The final result is an easy-to-use Morgan Dollar value guide with prices given in the two most frequently-encountered grades, all dates considered. If you've got some Morgan Dollars kicking around somewhere, and haven't looked them up since the price of silver has been hovering around $18 an ounce, check 'em out!

• Morgan Dollar Value Guide

Learn More About Morgan Dollars

• What Morgan Dollar Telemarketers Won't Tell You
• The Curious Story of the 1895 Morgan Dollar
• Diagnosing Roller Marks on Morgan Dollars
• How to Tell DMPL Morgans from PL's and SPL's
• Can You Tell a Proof Morgan From a DMPL?