1893-CC Morgan Bag: Two Thumbs Down

Steve Markoff
Photo www.procon.org

One day in 1965 I headed to Los Angeles from San Diego to deal with a few business matters.  I needed to buy some gold for the shop and wanted to visit a couple of dealers.  One of my stops was to see Steve Markoff¹ who worked out of a small downtown office at the time.

When I arrived at Steve’s office, he was in the middle of working with another coin dealer and silver dollars were spread out on the table in front of them.  They were discussing an entire bag of 1893-CC Morgan Dollars.  Perhaps this bag of dollars was acquired as part of the U.S. government dispersal program.²

Steve asked me to take a look at the bag and give him my thoughts.  In so doing, I learned a great deal about 93-CCs.

Enjoyin' the Drama at Coin-A-Rama

The coin business underwent significant transformation during the 1960s.   Coin collecting had primarily been an activity for the rich and famous, supported by a small number of numismatic professionals.

In the 1960s coin collecting began to attract regular folks, interest fueled in part by the U.S. discarding the gold standard and a limited period when coins or currency could be redeemed for silver.

The new hobby demographic was served by lots of new coin shops, coin shows, new methods of communication, and soon a major market developed.  I was excited to be part of the wave of change.