1878 Morgan Dollar

1878 Morgan Silver Dollar

What happened in 1878? The 1878 Morgan Dollar was minted in Philadelphia for the first time!

Next question... How many tail feathers does a bald eagle have? The answer would be seven, but thank goodness for error coins! Errors make collecting Morgan Dollars so much more fun! The first Morgan Silver Dollar had 8 tail feathers.

In 1878 they designed and struck the bald eagle which had only seven tail feathers. Now for some unknown reason the dies were engraved with an incorrect number of tail feathers, eight. By the time it was noticed it was too late to recall, but this is how we end up with the 1878 8TF Silver Dollar. To solve the problem they took the remaining 8 tail feather dies and over-punched 1878-morgan-dollar/them to show 7 tail feathers resulting in the 7/8 tail feather. You will see these referred to as the 1878 7/8TF Silver Dollar. By the end of the year they figured it out and the die had 7 tail feathers.

During the first half of 1878 the reverse dies had an eagle with a flat breast and a parallel fletch on the top arrow. However this eagle looked a little sickly with its sunken chest. These two problems were fixed by the latter part of 1878.These became known as the "reverse of 1879" So you could end up with an 1878 7TF with either a reverse of 1878 or a reverse of 1879

Next date 1879 Silver Dollar

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