1886-O Morgan dollar authenticated / graded / encapsulated by NGC as AU Details (cleaned). We offer a more economical choice for acquiring this conditional rarity of the Morgan dollar series. Enthusiasts will note that, as the search targets examples in AU and higher, the 1886-O gets scarce and expensive as a treasured rarity.
NGC has graded these AU Details, cleaned, from what must have been decades-ago cleaning efforts. Other coin graders are more specific, but we can be here in the photos: these look to be high AU grades with little wear, with cotton boll and eagle breast feathers all visible. As they are that good, why clean such sparsely-circulated coins that someone must have set aside right away?
Believe it or not - and it is hard enough to - coin dealers and collectors were advised to clean their coins in the mid-20th century. It's just one of those professional knowledge bits that turned out to be wrong advice for the care of a coin that would be possessed and sustained across the centuries. Because of the subsequent, light toning, it looks like these 1886-Os received some old cleaning long ago, sometime between the 1930s-1950s, at a guess based on when most 19th century coins were so conditioned.
Many collectors and shoppers don't sweat the cleaning if it's light, as you do "buy the coin and not the slab" and what cannot be restored is wear through circulation. These examples provide a cost-saving opportunity for you, as "details" grades go for somewhere along 70%-30% of the price of a coin with a firm equivalent grade. We are pleased to make these opportunities available.
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