Bluesheet: PROOF-LIKE MORGANS GET SOME MUCH-NEEDED ATTENTION

This week we have turned our focus on the Bluesheet to the long-ignored proof-like Morgan dollars series. Proof-like Morgans, or PL’s as we often refer to them sit in the middle of regular Morgans and the highly-specialized, and highly-sought after Deep Mirror Prooflikes of the same series. Part of the problem is that it’s not always easy for everyone to agree on whether a coin is prooflike or not. A few issues, like 1880-S dollars quite commonly feature some degree of prooflike reflection on their surfaces so the grading services are strict about handing out the designation. Similar reflectivity on a late date in the series would get a lot more leeway as PL’s generally become quite scarce starting in the 1890’s.

As new editors of pricing here at CDN, it would appear that pricing on the Bluesheet for this series has been ignored for quite a long time. We set to this task with the intention of making a few adjustments here or there, only to find that nearly every price was incorrect, and almost exclusively too low. We were shocked at this and dismayed because we believe that without accurate pricing, buyers and sellers cannot use the Bluesheet to aid in their decisions. In many cases, PCGS and NGC have not graded a single coin with the PL designation so we have replaced pricing with three tilde symbols (~~~). This is a convention we are using across the board in such cases. We expect this considerable amount of changes will inspire some discussion on the topic, so please share your thoughts and expertise with us at editor@greysheet.com.

ARE “PL” DOLLARS A GOOD INVESTMENT?
We think so. Prooflike Morgans are incredibly scarce and low population in comparison with their non-PL counterparts yet the prices we list here (based on empirical data from auction
and private treaty transactions) are often not much higher.

TWO THINGS TO CONSIDER WHEN EVALUATING “PL” DOLLARS
1. Make sure the PL designation meets your standard. That is: a nice, reflective surface;
2. Avoid coins with distracting marks in obvious places, like Liberty’s cheek.