A Guide Book of Morgan Silver Dollars (5th edition)
There are other good books on the series including the one
by Michael Standish, Morgan Dollar: America’s Love Affair with a Legendary Coin,
but there is no other reference guide to the series that combines a detailed
overview of the history of the series with a year-by-year summary of what was
happening in the country each year a Morgan dollar was issued and most
importantly, a date and mintmark analysis of each coin. The latter is especially useful because it
provides not just mintages, price info., and certified population data but also
what to look for with each coin in terms of strike, eye appeal, etc. for
circulating coins, prooflikes, and proof coins.
The recently-released fifth edition of this landmark book is
an important event in numismatic publishing.
In addition to updating the text, pricing, and graded coin data, and
providing new material on counterfeit error coins, a preface by Whitman editor Dennis
Tucker, a foreword by dollar coin expert Adam Crum, and more, the book also
contains what can only be described as a numismatic bombshell, the discovery of
hubs and master dies for a previously unknown 1964 Morgan dollar and for the
1964 Peace dollar, which was minted but of which there are today no confirmed
examples in existence. The Peace dollar
material is covered in a new volume of Roger Burdette’s Red Book on that series
that was also published recently.
In 1964 when Congress decided to issue silver dollars again,
there was brief though given to issuing a new Morgan dollar, but it was decided
to instead produce a 1964 Peace dollar, which was minted in great
quantity. As numismatists know well, all
of those coins were supposed to have been destroyed, but from time to time
reports surface of 1964 Peace dollars that made it out of the Mint, perhaps by
an employee.
But until the new edition of the Bowers Morgan dollar book,
no materials related to a 1964 Morgan dollar had ever been found, though they
were hinted at in some numismatic research.
But Mr. Bowers, Mr. Tucker, and several other numismatic researchers
went to the Philly Mint in July 2015 while researching the modern minting
process, where they discovered models, hubs, and master dies for a 1964 Morgan
dollar plus other materials relating to the 1963 and 1964 experiments to revive
silver dollars. No trial strikes or
actual coins were found. As Bowers says
in the book, the 1964 Morgan is now “one of those coins that might have been,
but never were.”