From the Experts: My Favorite Morgan Dollar

By Frank Van Valen, Numismatist, Cataloguer

From the late 1980s through the mid-1990s, I did a lot of traveling to gather auction consignments for what was then Auctions by Bowers and Merena. My travels took me across our great country, North and South, East and West—wherever people wanted to consign coins, I was there. I saw many great collections along the way, and shipped or carried home some great coins during that time. The consignors I’ve met are too numerous to mention here, though I am blessed with practically unlimited memories from my many trips. My favorite tale, hands down, has to do with a circulated 1896 Morgan dollar.

In the early 1990s I travelled to a midwestern location to look at a collection, a nice group that included a complete collection of Morgan dollars, right down to the 1895 rarity. The consignor was a dear gentleman in his late 80s who had reached the end of his collecting days and wished to pass the fruits of his labors on to other generations in the form of cash, as no other family member had even a remote interest in coins. We met at his home, where we gathered at the dining room table, surrounded by a few of his children and their children as well.

I went over his collection with him and we signed the contract. Then he mentioned he had a silver dollar that wasn’t in the collection, an 1896 in VF or so that he wanted to show me. It seems his father had given it to him in the 1920s and told him it was “the rarest and most important coin” he would ever own. The consignor, no stranger to Morgan dollars, knew it was just a VF 1896 with a value then of perhaps $15 or so, and he just couldn’t understand why his dad had told him to keep it safe for the rest of his long life. He laughed a bit and then handed it to me to get my opinion on this great “rarity.”

The moment after he handed it to me I knew the coin’s secret—it was a box dollar! I asked if he knew what a box dollar was and he had no idea. I explained how certain coins were cut in two, with one side hollowed out and the other side fixed with a hinge so that people could carry photographs and other items in the hollowed-out coin. Then, to the amazement of the collector and his gathered family, I pressed on the pressure point of the coin and the top flipped open to gasps of astonishment and pleasure. Inside the locket was a small picture of a woman dressed in all her 19^th century finery, and a lock of hair. I handed the coin over to the consignor and asked if he knew the woman inside. He stared for several seconds and his eyes slowly filled with tears. He looked across the table at me and whispered “That’s my mom on her wedding day in 1896.” It seems he had owned the coin for more than 70 years and never knew he was so close to his mom all that time. Needless to say, I left him in great humor and, as he put it, I was taking the collection, but he was keeping the treasure! And that’s why his 1896 dollar in VF is my favorite Morgan dollar.