1903 Morgan Dollars 1878-1921 VF30

History

Morgan dollars were struck under the Bland-Allison Act of February 28, 1878, which obliged the Treasury to buy domestic silver and coin it into standard dollars, resumed after the denomination lapsed in 1873, and the Sherman Silver Purchase Act of 1890 kept the bullion flowing. From 1898 onward the remaining stock was struck into dollars until the silver ran out in 1904, making 1903 one of the last three years of the original run. San Francisco's output that year came in fits and starts, with no coinage from January through May, 500,000 pieces in June, nothing in July, then 74,000 in August, 108,000 in September, 232,000 in October, 99,000 in November and 228,000 in December. The Pittman Act of 1918 authorized the melting of 270,232,722 silver dollars, and probably hundreds of thousands of 1903-S pieces went into those furnaces, with further losses in later melts.

Details

George T. Morgan designed both sides, and the San Francisco Mint struck 1,241,000 business strikes for the date, with the S mintmark placed on the reverse below the wreath. The alloy is the series standard of 90 percent silver and 10 percent copper, giving a weight of 26.73 grams and an actual silver content of 0.77346 troy ounce. The edge is reeded.

Features

The obverse carries Liberty facing left in a Phrygian cap and a coronet inscribed LIBERTY, with wheat and cotton in her headdress, thirteen stars around, the date below and E PLURIBUS UNUM above. On the reverse an eagle with outspread wings holds three arrows and an olive branch within a laurel wreath tied at the bottom, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA above and ONE DOLLAR below separated by six-pointed stars, IN GOD WE TRUST over the eagle, and Morgan's M on the left loop of the bow. Strikes for the date are usually very sharp, while prooflike examples are exceedingly rare. The important variety is the Micro S, or Small s, of VAM-2, an undersized mintmark close in size to the punch used on quarter dollars and almost certainly the result of an engraver reaching for the wrong punch; both mintmark sizes were already represented in the P.R. Griffith Collection sale of March 20, 1912.

Notable facts

• NGC places the average certified grade for the issue at roughly VF-30, reflecting a date that circulated heavily rather than sitting in bags.
• When the Treasury dispersed the last of its silver dollar hoard in the late 1960s, no bags of 1903-S remained, and PCGS ranks the date among the rarest Morgan dollars in Mint State.
• PCGS attributes the known Mint State Large S coins to Treasury releases, including one dispersal in November 1953.
• As of September 2011 PCGS had certified more than 350 Micro S pieces but had not graded a Mint State example since 1986, with two AU-58 coins standing as the finest.
• NGC has published a counterfeit-detection study of a 1903-S with an added mintmark, noting discoloration around the S that was visible without magnification, a common alteration because Philadelphia 1903 dollars have roughly four times the mintage.