The Professional Coin Grading Service will display the "worst of the worst" collection of Morgan dollars during the ANA 2014 Chicago World’s Fair of Money, held August 5 to 9.
These coins, dubbed the "End of the Trail VIII Collection," are the lowest graded basic set of Morgan dollars, making them the finest of their kind in the PCGS Set Registry®.
This collection "has a Poor weighted grade point average of only 1.130. It is the all-time finest, or in this case, the worst-of-the-worst basic Morgan dollar set in the Low Ball category," said PCGS President Don Willis. "While collectors have a lot of fun with the Low Ball sets, remember that it often is just as difficult and exciting to build a low grade set as it is to assemble a high grade collection."
Of the 97 coins, 87 of them are graded Poor (PCGS PO-1) and the other 10 are graded Fair (PCGS FR-2).
"PCGS launched the Low Ball registry category in 2007 as a fun and challenging way for collectors to compete to see who has the lowest graded coins," said BJ Searls, Collectors Universe Set Registry & Special Projects Director. "It’s much harder than you would think, but there are now 825 registered Low Ball sets of U.S. coins."
The End of the Trail VIII Collection can be viewed online at www.pcgs.com/setregistry/alltimeset.aspx?s=82663.
To see these worst of the worst Morgan dollars in person, stop by the PCGS booth (#701) at any time during the upcoming ANA convention. Free, educational brochures about the collection will be available while supplies last. The brochure includes illustrations of the top ten favorite low-grade Morgan dollar coins of the set’s owner, collector Mike Hoyman of Alaska.
Hoyman’s favorite, according to PCGS and pictured above, is an 1878 eight tail feathers variety that is missing more than 99% of the obverse but has enough reverse design remaining to distinguish the eight feathers. It is graded PCGS PO-1.
For additional information about PCGS and its services, visit www.PCGS.com.
I like this concept. I wonder who was still accepting that pictured Morgan as it wore down so close to total unrecognizability?
I have an Indian Head cent my grandfather gave me that’s practically a slick copper. Just hints of its design on both sides but it’s not possible to determine the date or even if it is Type I or Type II.
Now that’s great! This is like having a medal for the worst loser in a tournament! It might as well be called as shi**iest Morgan Dollar existing.
My current collecting quest is to try and get as many “worst known graded example” of the set key of every major US type. I long ago decided I could never afford the “finest known example”. I have a registry grade type set of non key dates already complete, this is a personal quest to own some of the “dream dates” that I personally think in upper grades have lost touch with reality in plastic. Maybe in 50 years my grandkids can display my collection.
K
If coins could talk I have no doubt this Morgan would have some stories tell.
This Morgan dollar was discovered in a “Old” coin book locked up since 1948 and taken out of the vault in 2010. To give you some idea of the wear on this coin it took 70 years worth of circulating before it was placed in the book and all but forgotten. The coin was struck in 1878 an no doubt did a lot of traveling around the world. Was seen by PCGS on two different occasions in the hope that a VAM attribution and “8” tail feathers could be properly identified. At the time of its discovery at a local… Read more »