Numismatic Ethics: Yes, We Have Them. Do you?

Posted on September 24, 2025 by Michael Bugeja

Let’s test your ethics: You go into a coin shop with a rare variety–say, a 1900-O/CC Morgan Dollar –but do not realize you have the overmintmark. You think it is just an almost uncirculated 1900-O. The price difference is significant at AU55: 1900-O, $65; 1900-O/CC, $450.

You don’t know that, either.

What should an ethical dealer do? If he belongs to the Professional Numismatists Guild, he must be truthful in “correctly grading and describing a coin’s condition, authenticity, and other material facts.” That means coin dealers should inform you about the overmintmark and pay wholesale price for the coin, roughly $385.

Now let’s switch roles. You are at a coin show and spot a dealer with a 1900-O Morgan selling for $75. Because you know varieties, you recognize this as a 1900-O/CC overmintmark. The dealer doesn’t. What should you do?

Give it some thought. We’ll revisit this scenario at the end of this article.

Let’s Talk Ethics

In addition to being a numismatist, I am a top ethicist with several books by Oxford University Press and other research publications.

I am concerned about the reputation of our hobby. We are coping with untold numbers of counterfeits, replicas, scams, social media hype, coin app hallucinations, microscope obsessions, and phishing expeditions, ruining the good name of coin collecting.

So I had an immediate negative reaction recently when I saw this post:

The author’s gloating about the price upset me as much as the “steal,” paying less than a dollar for a $40 coin. It prompted me to take a hard stance on his ethics, advising him to return it to the manager of Goodwill and let them know about the value.

He disagreed snarkily.

His feed erupted with others posting laughing emojis on my comment and most supporting the gloating buyer and denigrating Goodwill’s business practices. No one expressed concern about what he did.

I took a screenshot of the post, putting it on my feed. I was among friends here. But again, there was dissent.

To be sure, most agreed with me but some also criticized Goodwill, saying it deserves to be cheated. Some supported the gloating buyer because it was Goodwill’s responsibility–not his–to know what it had.

In ethics, this is known as “justification,” saying an action is okay–not because it is ethical–but because of distaste for the victim/loser (aka Goodwill).

So let’s eliminate Goodwill and restate the issue: What if the coin was in a Lutheran Church rummage sale?

Would you pay less than a buck for it … or tell the minister? If you yielded to temptation and took the coin, would you brag on Facebook that you effectively “stole” a $40 coin from a church?

This is known as situational ethics: it depends who the victim/loser is. Goodwill? Serves them right! Lutheran Church? Sure, but not Catholic. You get the idea.

Journalism embraces situational ethics. That’s not very encouraging. Some 36% of U.S. adults have no trust at all in the media with another 33% expressing “not very much” confidence.

So if you distrust the media and feel similarly, maybe you also should reconsider situational ethics. It’s never been very popular.

What about business ethics? Some remarked that Goodwill had the responsibility to know what it had. In other words, the seller should know the value of merchandise. If not, all bets are off.

Business ethics are about as popular as journalism ethics.

A significant portion of consumers actively consider and prioritize ethical practices in their purchasing decisions, with many willing to boycott brands that act unethically or pay more for products from ethically-minded companies.

Let’s talk about the Hobby

The topic here is “numismatic” ethics. There are three entities: buyer, seller, hobby.

Coin collecting doesn’t have a stellar reputation, either. First off, the industry is self-regulated. Those new to the hobby are particularly at risk of being taken advantage of by unscrupulous dealers who may rely on a buyer’s inexperience. Dealers must buy coins for less than they sell them to cover overhead. This prompts some to low-ball people, especially ones selling inherited collections.

Let’s Test Your Ethics

Remember the scenario mentioned at the beginning of this article? You know that a dealer has an 1900-O/CC rarity worth $450. But he hasn’t noticed the overmintmark and is selling the Morgan for $75.

Many will argue it is the dealer’s responsibility to know the value of their wares. After all, he is the seller and an expert. If he misses the overmintmark, fair game.

Not according to numismatic ethics.

You have three are choices:

Keep silent and buy the coin for $75. This is not considered ethical by most collectors. It exploits the dealer’s lack of knowledge for a significant personal gain and damages the reputation of the hobby.
Inform the dealer of the variety and offer a fair price. This is the most ethical approach. It builds trust within the numismatic community and demonstrates honesty.
Inform the dealer, but walk away. True, the collector misses out on a “steal,” but they have acted with integrity and respected the dealer’s right to full information.

Note again that there are three parties here: The customer, the dealer and the hobby.

Even Numismatic Nancy knows that:

Numismatic ethics requires us to use coin knowledge to inform others, not to to take advantage of them, including dealers. Even in online and estate auctions, I not only identify counterfeits for the seller but also varieties that they might have missed.

We embrace ethics to uphold the integrity of the hobby community of which we all are a part.

The Carson City Morgan that Isn’t

Posted on September 13, 2025 by Michael Bugeja

The Carson City mint closed in 1893, but 7 years later, the mintmark appeared on a Morgan dollar in New Orleans, making this variety one of the most popular in the series.

So how did the 1900-O/CC Morgan Dollar happen?

When the Carson City mint closed, its dies and other minting equipment were sent to Philadelphia Mint. To save funds, rather than make and ship new dies to New Orleans, a Mint employee was tasked with polishing the die, removing the CC and adding the O. As it turns out, he wasn’t a very good employee, failing to remove the CC before striking the “O” over it, resulting in the “O/CC” variety.

Hobbyists who collect all CC Morgans typically add the 1900-O/CC to their collection. It also is required for some set registries. And VAM enthusiasts (VAM catalogues Morgan varieties) especially like the overmintmark error, designating it with these distinctions: VAM-7, VAM-8, VAM-10, VAM-11, VAM-12 and more.

We’ll use VAM designations to show the difference in prominence of the overmintmark.

Hobbyists favor VAMs 10-12 because of the prominence of the overmintmark. All of these above varieties are on the Top 100 most desirable Morgan VAMs.

All 1900-O/CC varieties are valuable, typically more than $100 in any worn condition. At VF40, value rises to $300; AU55, $450; and MS63, $1400.

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You can find more information about errors and varieties as well as buying and bidding on coins in Coin News Updated: The Essential Guide to Online Bidding. Please consider purchasing the work for yourself or a friend, as it underwrites this hobbyist website. Thank you.

Beginner’s Guide to VAMs

Posted on September 10, 2025 by Michael Bugeja

Morgan and Peace Dollars are among the most popular and widely collected U.S. coins. While many collectors appreciate these coins for their history and beauty, fewer take the time to explore the fascinating varieties of each series. These varieties, known as VAMs, are named after Leroy Van Allen and A. George Mallis, the researchers who carefully studied and cataloged them by their die marriage.

Learning VAMs can feel like stepping into a whole new dimension of collecting. It’s a field that rewards patience and curiosity, often taking years to master variety attribution. Thankfully, new collectors don’t have to start from scratch! Resources such as the VAMWorld website provide a wealth of information, guides, and images that make this specialized area more approachable.

VAMWorld allows users to “contribute, edit and improve” its listings, continually updated with new discoveries, delisted varieties, renumbered varieties, and other important revisions! It is the most up-to-date listing for Morgan and Peace Dollar varieties. While the site includes a dedicated tab for new collectors, this section is often overlooked. For those just beginning their journey of studying VAMs, I strongly recommend first to read the Definitions and Attribution 101 pages as it will be needed to understand various design changes, date placements, mintmark locations, die clashing and other characteristics of variety attribution and terminology.

At present, VAMs aside, the hobby focuses on errors and varieties with newcomers, in particular, hunting ultra rarities such as 1992/1992-D Close AM or 1982-D Small Date 3.1 grams. Those types of varieties for Morgan and Peace dollars are catalogued in VAMWorld. But we go one step deeper. We not only identify that variety but also the various dies that might have created it and the popularity of those varieties within a variety.

Let’s see how Proxiblog’s Michael Bugeja uses VAMs to show all the various types of 1900-O/CC Morgans. The popularity and value of this Morgan is not only the variety, but the prominence thereof. VAMs 7 through 12 identify the difference in prominence of the overmintmark.

I often stress to newer collectors the importance of learning and understanding the reverse hub types for the Morgan Dollar series. This chart represents all of the reverse hub types used for the series in detail. It mentions only 1878 but is for the entire Morgan series from 1878-1921.

Granted, the above chart might intimidate hobbyists new to VAMs. Let’s simplify everything and show how three different VAM reverses for the 1878 8TF, replete with pickup points:

Developing a strong grasp of these distinctions is invaluable not only for attribution but also for detecting counterfeit pieces, as reverse hub diagnostics can quickly reveal inconsistencies.

In my very first article for Proxiblog, I used VAMs to discover a family of counterfeits that fooled collectors and grading services for decades. I wrote, “The ‘Micro O’ varieties have always been scarce coins to come by, and in 2005, these were deemed counterfeit by PCGS when 3 examples showed repeating circulation marks between the 1896 O VAM-4, 1900 O VAM-5, and 1902 O VAM-3.”

Navigating the VAMWorld website can feel overwhelming for newer collectors, but becomes much easier when utilizing the tools and resources provided. Each date specific page includes a set of guides.

Many collectors focus on the Top 100, Hot 50, and Hit List 40 varieties. These showcase the most popular and valuable varieties, minimizing what is known as “micro-vamming,” or listing insignificant types.

Introducing the Top 100, VAMWorld writes, “Many of these VAMs have entered the mainstream collecting of Morgan dollars; it has become unheard of to claim a complete Morgan dollar collection without including the 1882-O/S, Scarface, Hot Lips, and an 1900-O over CC example among several other varieties.”

Proxiblog emphasizes this with articles on each of those above and more. For instance, click the photo below to go to these VAM varieties that are viewed, simply, as desirable and valuable Morgans:

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You can find more information about types, varieties, errors, grading, bidding and buying in Coin News Updated: The Essential Guide to Online Bidding. Please consider buying or gifting the work for a friend, as it underwrites this hobbyist blog. Thank you.

Popular Morgan Dollar Varieties

Posted on September 6, 2025 by Michael Bugeja

These varieties not only are popular and valuable but often required for complete set registries of top holdering companies: 1879-CC Capped Die, 1879-S Reverse of 1878, 1880/79-O, 1880/9-S, 1882-O/S Strong, 1882-O/S Weak, and 1887/6 and 1887/6-O.

This article provides key diagnostics so you can identify these valuable coins.

1879-CC Capped Die

The capped die variety happened when the Mint decided to change the small CC into the larger mintmark. An employee tried to tool away the smaller CC and replace it with the larger one. He didn’t do a very good job.

Hobbyists tend to prefer the clear mintmark to the distorted one. The process of effacing the die, or die cap, gave the variety its nickname. As for value, both are rare and desirable through almost uncirculated grades, with the clear mintmark bringing $4,500 in AU55, about $1,000 higher than the variety. But in uncirculated grades, the variety is more valuable, with an MS63 Capped CC commanding a retail price of $10,000 and the clear mintmark about $500 less.

1879-S Rev. of 78

While the 1879-S is a relatively common coin, the reverse of 78 is a rare and coveted variety with a mere 8,900 thought to have survived out of a mintage of 9,110,000. The production that year began with the 1878 reverse dies but were halted early in the process for the 79 variety. The 1878 reverse dies feature a flat-breasted eagle and parallel top arrow feathers whereas the regular reverse has a rounded breast and larger top feature at a slant.

The new “Reverse of 1879” dies were quickly put into production, making the Reverse of 1878 variety a notable and desirable key date for collectors.

As you might expect, the 78 reverse commands much higher values across conditions with an MS63 worth $1,600 while the regular mintmark coin goes for $100.

1880/79-O

The 1880/79-O Morgan dollar variety resulted from the New Orleans Mint reusing an older, dated die from 1879 by re-engraving it with the new 1880 date. The mint worker did not fully erase the older date, so faint traces of the “79” are visible beneath the “80.” (Note: The same happened at the San Francisco Mint with an even weaker trace of the overdate–so weak that we exclude it from this article.)

Both practices of repurposing older dies was a way to conserve resources.

Here is the 1880/79-O overdate, compliments PCGS CoinFacts:

Because the remnant of the numbers 79 are usually faint, you may need a coin microscope to identify this variety. As for value, a regular 1880-O at MS63 retails for $90 whereas the 1880/79 goes for $800. That makes it very desirable.

1880/9-S

There are many VAM varieties (catalog of die markers) in 1880 Morgans, including 1880 VAM 6 8/7, 1880 VAM 7 8/7 Crossbar, 1880 VAM 8 8/7 Ears, 1880 VAM 9 8/7 Stem and 1880 VAM 11 Checkmark. We’ll leave those for another date. In this article we focus on the 1880/9-S because these are available and popular but may require a coin microscope to see on worn coins.

The 1880/9-S features the last digit of the date partially struck over the digit “9.” Here’s a PCGS CoinFacts photo showing remnants of the “9” in the overdate:

This variety is attractive because so many 1880-S Morgans were strongly struck and available in high mint state grades. The number of 1880/9-S Morgan dollars is not known out of a total 8,900,000.

An 1880-S at MS63 retails for $90 whereas the overdate goes for $160 at this writing.

1882-O/S Strong, 1882-O/S Weak

In 1882, the New Orleans Mint received a shipment of leftover reverse dies from the San Francisco Mint. A employee polished and overpunched an O on the S, creating the variety. The facility had three different reverse dies re-purposed for the New Orleans mint. Some overpunching was better than others, creating strong and weak versions.

The 1880-O had a modest mintage of 6,090,000. Many were melted in 1918 according to the Pittman Act and a mere 25,000 of the variety are said to have survived making them valuable. In MS63, a strong version retails for $550 and the weak version, $375. A regular 1880-O goes for $110 in that grade.

1887/6 and 1887/6-O

The 1887/6 and 1887/6-O varieties occurred because a U.S. Mint employee reused an existing 1886-dated die for striking 1887 Morgan dollars, but failed to completely erase the original “6” before engraving the new “7,” leaving a faint “6” under the “7.”

These usually are faint and may require a coin microscope to detect.

These overdates were melted in huge numbers according to the Pittman act. A regular 1887 at MS63 retails for $90 and an 1887-O, $275. An 1887/6 retails for $1,000 and an 1887/6-O for $2,400. That price difference is a reason for the popularity of these varieties.

If you like posts like this, you can read more articles on buying, selling and collecting at Proxiblog.org. Also, please subscribe to get our weekly newsletter and be informed whenever there is a new article or column.

Fake Oval O on 1897-O Morgan

Posted on September 3, 2025 by Michael Bugeja

By Jack Riley

In Numismatics, authenticity generally serves as the foundation in which all other qualities–such as grade, variety, and historical importance–are evaluated. Without certainty of authenticity, a coin’s value is nullified. This article was prompted by a recent eBay listing for an 1897-O Morgan Dollar offered at $250, which upon review, was determined to be counterfeit. For ethical reasons, the seller’s identity will remain undisclosed. After being contacted, the seller acted responsibly by immediately removing the listing and clarifying that they had been unaware of the coin’s illegitimacy. Their swift response and willingness to prevent the sale of a counterfeit merits recognition.

Here is a closer view of the coin in question. Immediately noticing the “Oval O” reverse which is not seen on 1897 dated coins, one can see something is wrong!

Image from an 1880-O courtesy of my friend Dave Jordan that shares a common reverse to the 1897-O listed on eBay.

A side by side comparison shows common markers related to this “Family.” Noteworthy markers include:

Oval O set left
Indent above the 2 berries below the right wing
Depression mark in the eagles left wing (viewers right) just above the tip of the wreath
Minor depression mark of the “I” in America

It is worth mentioning this reverse has been seen on 1895-O dated coins with an additional crack through the “T” of United. These are better quality counterfeits than many you may come across.

By understanding how die markers are used and by carefully examining coins for inconsistencies, coin collectors can increase their ability to identify counterfeit coins.

If you like posts like this, please go to our counterfeit archive with reports from Jack Riley, Jack D. Young and Michael Bugeja. Also, please subscribe so you can get our weekly newsletter and be informed whenever there is a new article or column.

Identifying Fake 1909-S VDB Cents

Posted on August 28, 2025 by Michael Bugeja

The key date of the Wheat Cent series is not only among the most popular of U.S. coins but also one of the most counterfeited ones, too, due to its value, rarity and ease of alteration. This is why Proxiblog recommends that collectors authenticate their raw coins with a top third-party grader. There are just too many fake coins out there.

But how to tell?

This article provides several die markers so that you can verify whether a coin is real before you purchase it. But before introducing them, we need to revisit coin history.

Controversial Initials

Fake 1909-S VDB cents have sullied the hobby ever since the U.S. Mint called attention to it by repositioning the designer’s initials from the reverse to the obverse in a much less conspicuous place.

Secretary of the Treasury Franklin MacVeagh disliked the prominence of Victor David Brenner’s initials and stopped production in August of that year, removing initials entirely on the remaining 1909 and 1909-S cents. That is why you only find the initials on some 1909 and 1909-S examples. In fact, those initials did not appear again until 1918 when the VDB appears below Lincoln’s shoulders. That’s how angry MacVeagh was. But he wasn’t thinking about counterfeits at the time even though his actions inadvertently made altered dates easy.

Scammers realized they stood to make big profits merely by adding:

An “S” to a 1909 VDB cent.
VDB to a 1909-S cent.
An “S” and “V.D.B” to a 1909 cent.

Rationale to do this concerned the scant 484,000 mintage of the key date 1909-S VDB and the high mintage of the Philadelphia coins (72,702,618 regular 1909 cents and 27,995,000 1909 VDB cents). The 1909-S NO VDB has a small mintage of 1,825,000 and is considered a semi-key date. But even these have been used in altered coins.

Values are synced with mintages. An EF45 1909 regular retails for about $7; 1909 VDB, $20; 1909-S, $200; and 1909-S VDB, $1,450.

In addition to the tens of thousands of altered dates over the years, current hobbyists have to contend with Chinese counterfeits and replicas sold as authentic on eBay and other venues.

This is why it is essential to know attributes of the dies that struck the rarity.

1909-S VDB Markers

As NGC reported in 2016 that just one “S” mintmark punch was used on all San Francisco Lincoln cent issues from 1909 to 1916. This is the first step in identifying a fake.

Real “S” mintmarks have a nodule here:

Now compare mintmarks with a genuine, added mintmark and cast replica mintmark:

As you can see, the real mintmark has a Roman font with serif. The added mintmark doesn’t. The replica has a serif but no nodule.

There are also four mintmark positions with respect to the date, with each edging a tad lower from the first 9 and 0 of 1909.

Mintmark 1 has the highest “S” with the top close to the first 9 of the date.
Mintmark 2 has the top of the “S” equal distance between the first 9 and 0 of the date.
Mintmark 3 also has the top of the “S” closer to the 0 of the date than the first 9.
Mintmark 4 has the lowest position with top of the “S” nearly flush under the 0 of the date.

Another die marker concerns the initials themselves. The “B” in VDB has a slanted crossbar; fakes usually forget this.

The last die marker concerns the extra thick stem of the letter “N” in “United.” A fake coin often forgets this minor detail.

Family of Fake Half Cents

Posted on August 23, 2025 by Michael Bugeja

By Jack Riley

The saga continues of “new” counterfeits popping up on the market. In my downtime I enjoy browsing online sites and forums. In my search I stumbled across this 1857 half cent listed by what I would consider an average seller. Plenty of listings, with a number of them being genuine coins.

With only one die marriage being the C-1 for circulation issues, this should be a simple coin to attribute. Bay listing (Top) compared to a PCGS certified example (bottom). Clearly the date doesn’t attribute!

Following this, I set out to find more of the “family.” It didn’t take long to stumbled upon this 1854 example that shares a common reverse!

Both coins share this reverse with a large depression in the “N” and a line through the H of “Half.”

Fellow Proxiblog contributor Jack Young sent an eBay link of a spurious seller, and within the listings, it yielded another date sharing this reverse!

There seems to always be a “new one” weekly!

Because of that, I urge collectors to attribute a coin if they intend to buy it or at minimal ask a second opinion.

Attribution of a coin can be done by anyone, even without books! PCGS CoinFacts app as well as NGC’s variety plus are great tools that show images of many die marriages for most series. Compare your coin to the known varieties and determine if it matches. Many things play a factor such as date position relative to the denticles, star orientation, reverse lettering spacing.

Recognizing these differences will prepare you to attribute tougher varieties!

If you like posts like this, you can read more articles on counterfeit coins by Jack D. Young, Jack Riley and Michael Bugeja at this URL. Also, please subscribe so you can get our weekly newsletter and be informed whenever there is a new article or column.

GSA Dollars with Flaws

Posted on August 20, 2025 by Michael Bugeja

If you have one, it may not be uncirculated or even authentic

Just because your GSA dollar is in its original US Mint holder doesn’t mean you have an uncirculated gem. Moreover, some are counterfeit and others so damaged that the government gave buyers a warning–see below–often missing when the coin is being sold online or in estate auctions:

The type of holder also indicates a potentially flawed Carson City dollar:

Here’s how the Mint categorized Carson City dollars in GSA holders:

Uncirculated Coins: Carson City silver dollars deemed to be in uncirculated condition were encapsulated in special hard plastic holders with “Carson City Uncirculated Silver Dollar” printed on them. These were accompanied by a numbered Certificate of Authenticity and presented in a black box with a velvet lining.
Other Condition Coins: Some coins showed wear or unsightly toning and were therefore not classified as uncirculated. These coins were also encapsulated in the hard plastic holders but without the “uncirculated” designation. They were still accompanied by a Certificate of Authenticity, however, these COAs were blank, rather than numbered.

Proxiblog recently notified a member of Facebook’s Morgan Dollar Group about a problematic GSA dollar.

This was Proxiblog’s answer:

“The coin has issues on the cheek. You need to take photo of the holder. I think this coin came in a GSA holder that didn’t state ‘Uncirculated.’ I suspect it came in a holder like this below.

Here’s a closeup of the obverse, showing scuff marks:

Over the years GSA dollars have been manipulated by hobbyists. Sometimes sellers did it intentionally. Other times, they just didn’t know how to distinguish a flawed coin from an uncirculated one, based on the Mint’s paperwork and designations.

Here is a prime example.

The seller includes this COA:

Several problems here:

He is selling a 1884-CC with a certificate that begins with the numbers “83,” indicating that this COA came from an “Uncirculated” holder in an 1883-CC box. (See Proxiblog’s article, “Wrong GSA COA and Counterfeit Holders.”)
He isn’t showing or never received the U.S. Mint “Important” notice about the coin having flaws.
He is selling the flawed coin for near $600 when it should go no higher than $275 with these scuff marks on the key area of the cheek:

This is why you still need to know how to grade if buying a GSA Morgan. You can waste money on a coin like this paying MS65 prices.

Proxiblog contacted the seller:

The seller stated that he accidently switched the COAs with his other stock. And to his credit, he ended the sale.

The sale was ended because of grading knowledge. Otherwise someone else would have received this lot.

So if selling, viewing or showcasing a GSA dollar, especially on Facebook, be aware of the factors mentioned in this article.

Check the holder for the word “Uncirculated.”
Look for the GSA note (not a numbered COA) if the holder lacks the word “uncirculated,” noting the coin has flaws or unsightly toning.
Remember that the first two numbers of the COA on an uncirculated GSA dollar should match the last two numbers of the coin’s date.

Finally, be aware of Chinese counterfeit GSA dollars housed in a smooth rather than textured holder:

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Buying Coins: “How’d I do?”

Posted on August 16, 2025 by Michael Bugeja

Increasingly on social media, coin buyers display their recent purchases and ask, “How did I do?” If you ask this question, you probably should not be buying expensive coins. Then again, you can learn how you did by reading this article, which takes you step by step in the buying and bidding process.

For starters, if the coin is in a top-tier slab (PCGS, NGC, ANACS, CAC, ICG), you don’t need to ask that question. Just go to the cert of the holdering company, and you will see retail, wholesale and auction prices. See this article for details.

In the past, new collectors used to learn about coin value from brick-and-mortar shop owners who also belonged to the Professional Numismatist Guild. Now the number of coin shops have declined steadily due to high overhead (rent, security, insurance, inventory) and risk of robbery. Meanwhile coin magazine subscriptions plummeted. For instance, Coin World‘s readership declined from 33.4 million in 2015 to 21.5 million in 2019. Now the magazine measures its audience digitally, with some 65,000 collectors on its social media platforms and 40,000 on its marketplace page.

As a result, collectors prefer the convenience of buying online but often are misinformed by clickbait social media.

In the past, people had buyer’s remorse when they were hoodwinked. Now many collectors do not even realize they have been scammed.

Given these risks, how should they go about buying coins?

Learn how to grade if buying raw or unholdered coins.
Buy from reputable third-party graders, especially if you don’t know how to grade.
Identify counterfeit coins masquerading in fake holders.
Know common flaws that buyers often miss.
Visit PCGS Photograde and compare your coin to grades listed there.
Before you bid on or purchase a coin, visit PCGS CoinFacts to see both retail, wholesale and auction values.
Only patronize online sellers who accept returns.

Let’s go through the above list with a coin being sold on eBay at this writing. Great Southern Coins is a reputable seller that also accepts returns:

This seller states that the coin is semi-prooflike and gem brilliant uncirculated. If you know how to grade, you might have a different opinion. It looks almost uncirculated or low mint state with flaws (scrapes, bag marks, rim dings and a pin scratch):

Now let’s go to Photograde and see what condition may match the raw coin above:

So we’re looking at an MS61 1879 Morgan. Now let’s consult PCGS CoinFacts for possible value:

Here we read about mintage and specifications:

Time to see retail and auction prices. An 1879 without flaws retails for $90 with 516 graded by PCGS at that level selling roughly at auction for about $70-100 with values seemingly rising over the years from about $50 in 2014.

But this 1879 from Great Southern Coins has flaws. What does one in a similar condition go for? CoinFacts again supplies the answer: $65.

Great Southern Coins ships inexpensively for $3.25 so I don’t have to worry about additional buyer’s fees and mailing. A good maximum bid for this coin would be $50.

If this coin were featured on HiBid or Live Auctioneers you would place a different maximum bid because sellers on those platforms often charge 15-25 percent buyer fees and $10-15 mailing. So if bidding here, your maximum would be $30 ($6 buyer fee at 20% and $14 mailing).

Here’s an example from a seller who already knows the value of the coin based on his starting $35 bid. But here you also pay $15 for shipping in addition to 15% buyer’s fee. So if you won the coin with a $35 bid, you would pay $5.25 plus $15 for a total: $55.25.

Now that you know the process, practice on eBay or HiBid/Live Auctioneers–not by bidding–but by following bidding and final sale and see if your estimate would have lost or won the coin. Do this repeatedly until you are confident in your purchasing skills.

If you like posts like this, you can read more articles on buying, selling and collecting at Proxiblog.org. Also, please subscribe so you can get our weekly newsletter and be informed whenever there is a new article or column.

Native American Dollar Varieties

Posted on August 9, 2025 by Michael Bugeja

Known by its distinctive golden surface and edge lettering, the Native American dollar, introduced in 2009, is a continuation of the Sacagawea dollar series, featuring her on the obverse and a different reverse design each year. There are several major varieties, featured here, and several weak/partial/missing edge and position varieties.

Let’s cover the latter first:

Position A: The edge lettering is upside down when the obverse (Sacagawea’s portrait side) is facing up.
Position B: The edge lettering is right-side up when the obverse is facing up.

Here’s an illustration:

Edge lettering is applied after the coin is struck with both positions considered normal, typically without any rarity or substantial value. However, weak/partial, missing and double edge lettering are highly desirable.

Here are illustrations:

Here are main years you want to search for along with values for gem MS65:

2009-P Native American – Pos. B Partial, $200
2009-P Native American – Pos. B Weak, $75
2009 Native American Missing Edge Lettering, $35
2010-P Native American Missing Edge Lettering, $75
2011-P Dbld Edge Let., Overlap, Pos. A, $85
2012-P Native American, Pos. A Weak Lettering, $90
2012-P Native American, Pos. B Weak Lettering, $40
2013-P Native American, Pos. B Dbld Edge Overlap, $350