Morgan silver dollars in the first year, 1878, come from dies modified several times to improve a design that was adapted in a rush and originally intended for a smaller denomination.
Changes on the obverse were subtle. Those on the reverse were significant enough to make separate listings in standard catalogs. One of the chief effects was to make the eagle's breast more rounded. The beak was altered, and leg feathers got a trim. Berries were rearranged. The most noticeable features, though, the ones that collectors use in main descriptive terms, are the number of the eagle's tail feathers and the arrangement of the arrow feathers.
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EAGLE'S UPPER BEAK is blunt on the first Type A (A1) reverse.
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These are the three main reverse types:
Eight Tail Feathers: This type is only on the early 1878 Philadelphia strikes. This is Van Allen-Mallis (VAM) Type A (Comprehensive Catalog and Encyclopedia of Morgan & Peace Dollars by Leroy C. Van Allen and A. George Mallis), further categorized as A1, with blunted top beak, and A2, with hooked beak. The A2 hub is found only impressed over an A1 hub, Van Allen and Mallis note.
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ON "B" REVERSES, the top arrow is parallel with others. On B1, as shown on this 1878-CC Morgan dollar, the center arrow shaft is long ("long nock") and protrudes from the bundle.
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Seven Tail Feathers, Parallel Top Arrow Feather; VAM Type B; called the "2nd reverse" in A Guide Book of United States Coins (the "Red Book"): The eagle's breast is flat; the beak, hooked. On VAM B1, the center arrow in the bundle has a long shaft (nock); B2 has a short nock. "B" reverses may be found on some 1878 Philadelphia, all 1878-S and 1878-CC and some 1879-S and 1880-CC dollars, according to Van Allen and Mallis.
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'I' IN MOTTO touches eagle's wing on the A1 reverse.
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Seven Tail Feathers, Slanted Top Arrow Feather; VAM Type C; the "Red Book's" "3rd reverse": The eagle's breast is more rounded. The rim is wider. Seven berries are on the right side of the wreath and 10 on the left side (as opposed to nine and eight, respectively, on earlier types). This type is found on some 1878 Philadelphia, 1879-S and 1880-CC and all other dollars from 1879 to 1904, according to Van Allen and Mallis. Four subtypes (with superscript numbers) differ in minor ways, such as the position and configuration of the first A in AMERICA.
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"SHORT NOCK," or short central arrow shaft, characterizes the Van Allen-Mallis B2 reverse, as seen on this 1878-S Morgan dollar.
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Production of standard silver dollars resumed in 1878 after a four-year hiatus. Congressional action in 1873 that eliminated the standard silver dollar was reversed. Under pressure from those who wanted a monetary standard based on silver as well as gold, the "cartwheel" was revived in 1878.
The Mint could easily also have revived Christian Gobrecht's Seated Liberty type, but Mint Director Henry Richard Linderman had already set wheels in motion for what he hoped would be improvements in silver coinage designs.
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HOOKED UPPER BEAK is on A2 reverse (all actually A2 over A1). Also, The I of IN is slightly away from the eagle's wing on the A2/A1.
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Linderman served as Mint director from 1867 to 1869 and again from 1873 to 1879. Upon his appointment the second time, he had an idea for general coinage redesign to be introduced in 1876, the country's centennial year. Although he did not meet that goal, he did arrange in that year to hire George T. Morgan from the Royal Mint of England as an engraver. Morgan had studied under the master engravers J.S. and A.B. Wyon at the Royal Mint.
He served as an assistant to the aging Chief Engraver William Barber until Barber died in 1879, and then under William Barber's son Charles until the younger Barber's death in 1917.
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DOUBLED TAIL FEATHERS result from a B (Seven Tail Feathers) hub being impressed over an A (Eight Tail Feathers) hub in the die. This example on a Philadelphia strike is Van Allen-Mallis Variety 38 for a Philadelphia 1878 Morgan dollar.
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During the 1870s, the elder Barber and young Morgan competed vigorously with new concepts for coin designs and caused a large number of pattern strikings to be struck. In fact, Van Allen and Mallis note in their Comprehensive Catalog and Encyclopedia of Morgan & Peace Dollars, Linderman instructed Morgan in August 1877 to have no more patterns made without his authorization.
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THE EAGLE and wreath reverse was a triumph of acceptance for the work of George T. Morgan, who had been hired from the Royal Mint of England only two years before. The first type of reverse, from the Eight Tail Feathers hub, is pictured.
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As can be seen in U.S. Pattern Coins, Experimental and Trial Pieces, the revision of J. Hewitt Judd's original work on the topic, Morgan rendered variations of his Liberty Head concept for a series of pattern half dollars in 1877. The essential design, and one of the eagle reverses he used in combination on the half dollar patterns, were adapted for the new silver dollar in 1878.
Van Allen and Mallis cite a letter from Linderman to Philadelphia Mint Superintendent James Pollock in February 1878 as evidence that Linderman came to prefer Morgan's devices over any from Barber for the most practical of reasons: "There is little if any difference in their merits, but that since a choice has to be made, I have selected the one having the lowest relief and requiring the lightest power to bring up the devices and inscriptions."
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SEVEN TAIL FEATHERS appear on some 1878 Morgan dollars from the Philadelphia Mint, all 1878-S and 1878-CC dollars and all 1879 and later dollars. Detail here is from an 1878-CC Morgan dollar with what Van Allen and Mallis call B1 reverse. "C" reverses also have seven tail feathers.
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With all of the changes made to the silver dollar designs during their first year of production, Linderman may have miscalculated the ease with which Morgan's designs could be transferred from a half dollar pattern to a bigger silver dollar.
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"C" REVERSES have a slanted top arrow, as seen on this Philadelphia 1878 Morgan dollar. Van Allen and Mallis differentiate C1, C2 and C3 types, differing in only minor ways, such as the position and configuration of the first A in AMERICA.
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