1921-S $1 MS PL

Key to Collecting: Following suit with the other varieties of this year, the 1921-S Morgan is common in all grades including Mint State. Most are poorly struck. Again, there is opportunity for connoisseurship. The 1921-S, although plentiful, is seen less often than its Philadelphia and Denver counterparts. All have a tiny or “micro” S mintmark.

Surface Quality: Most are somewhat shallowly struck on Liberty’s hair and on the reverse. “A fully struck piece with good luster is very rare,” note Van Allen and Mallis, and raises a challenge for the collector who, in the word of the late Frank Archer, is in any way “particular.” The strike varies, but is often unattractive.

Prooflike Coins: Prooflike coins are very rare. As none of the 1921 dies of this or the other two mints were basined (a process that in the 1878–1904 era often imparted prooflike character to the dies), this feature is seldom seen.

Mintage and Distribution: It seems that the 1921-S dollars were fairly scarce in the 1920. When dollars were needed, the Treasury Department and the San Francisco Mint paid out other coins. Beginning in a large way in the 1930’s, millions were released, many going to Nevada. In 1939 a torrent of these coins entered local commerce in San Francisco. In 1942, many may have been melted under legislation that reduced 50,000,000 coins to bullion. Unlike certain dollars of other dates, bags of 1921-S coins were viewed with disdain, and few were kept. Today, few bulk lots survive in any one place. These coins are seen much less often than are 1921 dollars of the other two mints.

All reverses have 16 berries in the right-hand-side reverse wreath. Some dies have raised dots, thought by some to be from the point of a hardness-testing gauge, and by others to be from gas bubbles in the die blank. These dots occur on dollars from all three mints.