I set out for Philadelphia this August with a very specific mission to find a Proof Morgan Dollar to add to my collection. My thinking was since it would be a large east coast show that this would be the best time and place to go looking. I thought it would be a piece of cake to find a lot of examples and narrow them down to a few nice specimens in my price range and pick. As it would turn out the easy part was narrowing them down not finding them. When I could find them they where either too toned & rough for my taste or too high a grade & price. As luck would have it though my regular dealer had brought a beautiful 1904 PR-64 that is just amazing. It does have a slight golden brown tone but nothing that distracts from its surface and I couldn’t be more happy to add it to my collection even though I did end up spending a little more than I had planned. I would have loved to have seen some more coins that matched my price range and taste but all an all it was a wonderful hunt. I was also able to add a beautiful 1881-O MS-64 to my set so it is shaping up nicely.

This year the National Money Show was held at the Irving convention center in Irving, Texas. Since the National Money Show was being held in my neck of the woods I decided to take friday off and see how much trouble I could get into. I was able to add an 1878 7/8TF Weak VAM-41A, 1884, and 1890 to my collection. See the pictures below or visit my updated set on my profile.

I was recently looking up what most people claim is a complete date & mint set of Morgan Dollars and exactly how many coins that was total. The answer of 97 puzzled me because even if I included the 1878 7 Tail Feathers & 1878 8 Tail Feathers that would only add up to 96 coins total.  Which is one short of the 97 coins total everyone is talking about. My only guess is that they are also counting the 1895 proof only issue which would put most of the coin collecting community out of reach of a complete set.  My interpretation is that a compete Morgan Dollar date & mint set is 95 coins total. One coin from each year & mint excluding 1895 Proof only and one of the 1878 Tail Feathers. Which I know the two Tail Feather varieties are very important issues for the series but lets be honest no one would knock you for only having one or the other if you had the rest of the set. In closing this just goes to show that you should not collect how other people tell you too but how you want too. I am building a Morgan Dollar set of 121 coins consisting of only one proof, each date & mint mark, and major varieties. If you get a chance go to my collections and check out my progress so far on my Morgan Dollar set.