Hello. Any numismatists out there who can help me? I recently came into possession of some rather strange coins. One is a Morgan silver dollar, with a perfectly normal reverse, with no mint mark. The obverse is strange, however. There is no date and no “E Pluribus Unum.” Instead, Miss Liberty is surrounded by a total of 21 stars. The other two are Seated Liberty dollars, one dated 1847, the other 1861. The obverses are normal, but the reverses both contain the motto “In God We Trust.” This is strange because this feature was not added until the 1866 version. These two should have no motto. Are these all rare mistakes, or fakes? An exhaustive google search revealed no information about the existence of such coins. I’d appreciate any information anyone can give me. Thanks.
The top 100 morgan SD varieties
says a lot.
Fakes.
Assuming they are silver, you have two choices. They are copies, made in the last 10-15 years and should have the word “copy” somewhere, assuming they were produced by someone other than in their basement.
I’d be interested to know if the words “one dollar” appear on the coin. If not, then they are just silver 1-ounce pieces, made as bullion, with a nice design and do not need the word “copy.”
If they carry the words “one dollar” and don’t have “copy,” then they were produce probably outside of the US, and meant to fool a tourist most likely.
The “no date” argues for them to be just ounces of silver, IMHO.
What you have there are “collectable medallions” struck by an private mint (i.e. foundry). They are only worth there silver content and do not have to be labled fake because they are not close enough copies to fool anyone. I have ones that look like large indian head pennies and buffalo nickels, they only cost about $12 a piece new and can be bought at auctions for whatever the price of silver is selling for that day (~$7/oz today).
The Seated Liberty coins say “One Dol.” I’m not sure about the Morgan (I don’t have it with me as I type this), but the reverse looked perfectly normal, so it would say whatever it is supposed to. In fact, I live in Chiang Mai, Thailand, which is where I bought the coins. None of them say “fake” anywhere on them. Thanks very much for the information.
Since they were bought in Thailand, I’m gonna make a probably assumption. Not only are they fake, but they might not even be silver. We in the US see lots of silver-coated copper fakes. Usually purchase in the Far East, sometimes in Spain or Italy. Go figure.