1881-S Morgan Silver Dollar NGC MS66

The 1881-S Morgan Silver Dollar

The 1881-S Morgan Silver Dollar was struck at a mint in a time where quality was exceptional, and near-perfect examples are known to exist. These coins, being available in MS66, means that you can have a very high quality coin minted over 130 years ago at an affordable cost.

San Francisco Mint

The San Francisco Mint was opened as a response to one of the largest finds of gold in world history, and the need to monetize that gold for commerce during the boom that followed its discovery. As gold had first been discovered in the area in 1848, the San Francisco Mint became busy striking coins as soon as it opened in 1853.

When the Comstock Lode of silver was discovered in Nevada a few years later, San Francisco was the convenient location to use for minting coins of that silver which could be used for local commerce, or traded overseas for luxury goods.

By 1873 it had been discovered that the standard silver dollar coins minted in the United States were not standard overseas, so a new coin - the Trade silver dollar - was created to meet that overseas need for trade silver.

The Bland-Allison act of 1878 changed everything for the San Francisco Mint, taking the lime light from the now-defunct Trade dollar coins and focusing a hefty majority of its energy on production of Morgan Silver Dollars. The San Francisco mint is one of only two mints that produced Morgan Silver Dollars from the first year of its production in 1878 all the way through to the end of the series in 1921.

NGC MS66

This coin was graded by the Numismatic Guaranty Corporation (NGC) as Mint State 66. This is an exceptional grade demanding exceptional luster and quality. Marks and scratches may be very mildly present and will not detract from the overall appearance of the coin.