A recent eBay listing of a counterfeit 1909-S VDB cent sparked me to look at the rest of this particular seller’s offerings. They had nearly half of a dozen 1881-S Morgan Dollars along with a few counterfeits of other series. The 1881-S is a relatively common coin and easily found in high mint state grades; one wouldn’t expect to stumble across a counterfeit. The first image is of one of the represented coins.
A comparison of three of the coins tells the tale. Given the scratches, dings and random “circulation” marks, this isn’t a mix up of images. There are three separate coins.
Anyone who does a lot of variety attributions of Morgan Dollars will know that 1881-S is a difficult year to attribute and generally won’t be done just by a glance like some dates. All examples from this eBay seller exhibit the same repeated contact marks.
Notable obverse marks:
- Line through S
- Surface scratch left of U
- Small surface mark between right star 5 and 6
Notable reverse marks:
- Small scratch below the base of S
- Field dot between U-N and above U
- Minute surface flaws between E-D
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