Morgan Dollars

Folks, just sharing my experience and hopefully save you some pain.

I buy American Morgan dollars to build up my collection. Recently I have noticed a larger and larger number coming from China.

I have also been buying direct from the US and always carefully do my due diligence on the Seller. In doing so I have purchased coins from what I thought was a legitimate US Seller - shipping from the US, feedback looked great etc etc. However on asking a question regarding postage I found out that in fact the Seller was Chinese shipping from China. One case I had actually paid before finding out the coin was from China.

I believe that some sellers are hiding behind identities created to look American (or possibly another country), so please be aware of this when buying on US Ebay.

In addition you must do you own due diligence. Why have so many relatively scarce coins come onto the market from China? Have you checked legitimate sources to determine if the coin was actually made that year (especially CC minted coins with much fewer circulation), or rare key dates. There are many sources on the web, just do a search on "Morgan mint quantities" or something like that.

Have you checked prices on US EBay or coin dealers from the US?

One coin that I received was in fact an excellent reproduction and I would be surprised if many of you would be able to tell the difference. I am no expert and the only way that I could tell without damaging/cleaning the coin was the 'ring' of it. It made a different tone when struck to all my other Morgans, indicating to me that the metal composition was different.

I don't want to cast aspersions on all sellers from China, I am sure that there are many legitimate ones who operate in good faith. However I would not buy any of these coins knowingly from there. I would only urge you to have some skepticism and please do your own due diligence - it could save you money.

Hope this helps.