1880-CC Silver Dollar - 1880-CC Morgan $1.00, 8/High 7, PCGS MS65. This satiny, Gem graded 1880-CC Morgan Dollar has lovely, smooth mint luster and fully original surfaces. The obverse shows a strong strike with full details in Libertys hair above her ear. Just a few abrasion marks probably keep this coin from a Superb Gem grade. While slight toning is seen on the periphery, the coin is predominantly white. Evidently the obverse die started as an 1879 because traces of the under date can be seen in the upper loop of the second 8.

George T. Morgan designed the Morgan silver dollar, which was issued every year from 1878 to 1904 and then again in 1921. Hundreds of millions of Morgan silver dollars were saved in bags of 1,000 each in bank vaults because the federal government created artificial demand for them to satisfy the Western silver interests. Some were melted in the 1918, but large quantities remained in bank vaults and were later bought by investors and collectors. Because many millions of Morgan silver dollars exist today in the hands of the public, the Morgan silver dollar has become the most widely collected coin of its era.

In the late 1870s a group of silver mine owners convinced Senator William Allison (Republican from Iowa) and Representative Richard Bland (Democrat from Missouri) to support a proposal for a new silver dollar. After much negotiation and intense lobbying by the silver industry, Bland and Allison introduced a bill to resume silver coinage, which had been stopped earlier. Despite the veto of President Rutherford B. Hayes, the Bland-Allison Act became law in February, 1878. It required that the Treasury buy a minimum of two million dollars a month of domestic silver to be coined into dollars. It also gave the silver dollar legal tender status. These became the dollars designed by George T. Morgan. The act attempted to keep silver at artificially high levels. Large quantities of Morgan Dollars were minted, but they did not circulate well and were kept in

Treasury storage vaults, which accounts for their availability today in mint state grades. In 1904 production was halted because the supply of bullion was depleted. In 1918 the Pittman Act provided for the return of the Morgan dollar. It made its final appearance in 1921.