1885-CC Morgan Dollar

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The first step in assessing the value of a Morgan dollar is to look at the date on the obverse and the mintmark near the bottom of the reverse. An 1885 Morgan dollar struck in Philadelphia has a modest numismatic premium and can be found in low Mint State for about $100. Very little price difference exists between an “O” mintmark (for New Orleans) and an 1885 mintmark-less issue from Philadelphia. The “CC” mintmark for Carson City, however, is another matter.

An 1885-CC Morgan dollar has a premium of several hundred dollars in most grades over its Philadelphia counterpart—a gap that widens dramatically near the top of the grading scale. Clearly, a counterfeiter has a strong incentive to find a way to add a “CC” mintmark to the blank canvas of a Philadelphia issue.

An expert counterfeiter can manipulate the metal on the surface of a coin to sculpt a “CC” mintmark. An unscrupulous forger with exceptional skill can even drill into the edge and use a special tool to force up metal in the shape of a mintmark from the inside of the coin! 

For the less skilled criminals, the most common method of adding a mintmark is to remove one from an existing coin with less value and attach it to a new coin, typically with an adhesive. There are no cheap Carson City Morgan dollars, but the 1882-CC, 1883-CC, and 1884-CC can all be purchased in About Uncirculated for around $250. Numismatic Guaranty Company (NGC) recently received a purported 1885-CC that shows what can go wrong even with the simplest method of adding a mintmark.

With this particular altered coin, after the counterfeiter attached the “CC,” they attempted to make it blend in by harshly cleaning or perhaps even whizzing the entire mintmark area. This left it looking considerably darker than the rest of the coin; just compare the shift in color of the “CC” to the nearby letters in DOLLAR. 

Compounding this mistake, it appears that the counterfeiter accidentally broke off the top-right portion of the first “C,” probably during the process of cleaning or whizzing the mintmark! Keep in mind the counterfeiter had made a significant investment of money and time to obtain that piece of metal, and they could not simply replace it. 

Although the alteration to this coin wasn’t difficult to detect, added mintmarks can often be tricky to spot because only a tiny portion of the coin has been altered. If you are unsure whether a mintmark is genuine, remember that NGC backs its determinations of authenticity and grade with the NGC Guarantee.

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A version of this article appears in the May 2026 issue of The Numismatist (money.org).