1899-O Morgan is this a Micro O?

I recently picked up an 1899-O Morgan in MS & was looking to attribute it by VAM. What grade would you assign to this?




I'm leaning towards this being a Micro mint mark variety. However, a close examination of the mint mark under magnification yielded some interesting results. do you see a CC die transfer on the O? I don't see any record of that on similar pieces.

 

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No. Micro O is much smaller and almost never uncirculated.

 

A few more pics:

 

Very nice luster, shame about the dark spots. What gives me real worry about the obverse are the many nicks all headed same direction on cheekbone, cheek, jaw, neck, forehead and in front of the nose and forehead in the fields. They look like the only marks on the coin beside the infamous spots, otherwise very clean. For the marks it can't grade gem, hopefully they'll give it a 64.

 

I do see that the micro o is scarce in high grades. However, this seems smaller than the standard mint mark, on par with the half dollar mintmark from that era. What diagnostics do you use to distinguish the two?

 

Yeah, the few watermarks or other stains are the biggest negatives on this piece. It's got even nicer luster in hand (I'm still getting the hang of using my lit magnifying glass without causing glare, especially when the coin is under a layer of plastic for protection from my inquisitive 3-year old).

What do you make of the underside of the mintmark though? That seems quite odd to me, and looks weirder the more I stare at it.

 

The mint mark on your coin has been mangled by a hit from another coin or something else. What book are you showing the pictures of the mint marks from? VAM 6 is a micro O for 1899, and is actually the coin that counterfeiters used to make the reverse die for the 1900-O VAM 5 Micro O. VAM 4 is also a micro O for 1899, so the mint mark they show under that heading makes no sense, as it's a normal O.

 

Redbook of Morgan Silver Dollars by Bowers

 

Yeah, I think the label is confusing (or a typo). The O on the left looks like the normal sized mintmark, & the right is the micro-o. Or, that's how I was reading it.

 

The 5th edition of that book sort of fixes the pictures. It still has the date position switched around for VAMs 4 and 6, though.

 

http://coinappraiser.com/rare-coin-knowledge-center/the-carson-city-mint/

"After coinage operations ceased in 1893, the Carson City Mint was kept open as an assay and refining facility, but was referred to as a mint in reports until 1899. In that year some reverse dies with the Carson City mintmark were converted to New Orleans dies by partially effacing the CC mintmark and punching an O mintmark in the same place, as by that time it was realized that no more dollars would ever be made in Carson City. Thus was created the 1900-O/cc dollar."

Did some CC dies get effaced & reused a few months earlier?

 

O/CC is only for 1900, but we don't yet know exactly when in 1900. There hasn't been any internal Mint documentation found that specifically brings up repurposing the CC reverse dies.

There are contemporary counterfeit 1896-O/CC and 1901-O/CC coins made by the same counterfeiters that brought us the 1896-O, 1900-O and 1902-O micro O coins, but very few are known and they are low grades.

 

Nope. Really nice coin, IMHO, but a standard 0 mint mark. Typical soft mint mark New Orleans strike.

 

Looks normal to me. The micro O should be smaller. The mintmark took a hit and with the other hits and dark spots you might get a 64 out of it but even that is common. Not worth grading to me.

 

Actually. The 1899-O normally has a decent strike. I’d say this is a bit weak for the year but full strike examples are not uncommon from that year.

I also agree with the other members of the group, not a micro-O.

 

That coin is weakly struck. Look at the bare eagle’s breast.

 

I agree. This coin is weakly struck. But that is not “typical” of an 1899-O.

Weak strikes are not the norm for all O mint dates.

 

No, not all. Many are average. The strikes of the New Orleans mint vary the most of all the mints. I would say I have found a few well-struck o mint coins, over my years of collecting Morgans. Predominantly, they vary from average to weak, with some exceptions. The mintmarks are often poorly struck, on otherwise decently struck coins.