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packaging used for these earlier coins, it almost seems a miracle that any high quality cameos from the 1950 to 1970 era exist at all! The finest cameos, being early strikes off proof dies, are quite simply "the best of the best", for they are not only struck from proof dies, the finest possible dies, but are struck from those dies when they are in their most pristine, unworn state! There could not be a more striking difference between one of these first cameo strikes, and between a coin struck much later off the die - a brilliant proof. If one did u.s.currency not know better, one would think that the two coins were struck from two completely different dies! In a sense, they were. More correctly, they were both struck from the same die, but one coin was struck before that die had experienced the wearing effect of 100''s of tons of pressure of metal on metal, and one coin was struck after that die had experienced those wearing effects. The opportunity of owning scarce, attractive coins that also are the ultimate in quality for their era has a very special appeal to u.s.currency collectors. It also gives these coins tremendous "upside" potential, as it very hard to pay too much for coins that offer the collector the this market was virtually ignored 30 years ago. What brought it to prominence? Quite simply, information was made available that resonated with the collecting public. At that time, high grade Morgan dollars were not even considered worth collecting by many numismatists, because they were thought to be so plentiful. u.s.currency In other words, though they ranked high in categories 1. Beauty, u.s.currency 2.Quality, and 4. Price, in collectors'' minds they ranked extremely low in category 3. - Rarity. Therefore, their desirability as a collectible was thought to be limited. However, several landmark books were published on Morgan dollars in the 1970''s and early 1980''s which educated the collecting public on many aspects of the Morgan dollar series they were not aware of. Probably the most significant of these books, Wayne Miller''s "The Morgan and Peace Dollar Textbook", was the first book that provided an in-depth date-by-date analysis of this series along with photographs. Significantly, Miller was one of the first authors to estimate a date''s rarity u.s.currency not only in uncirculated condition, but also in gem MS 65 uncirculated condition, and gem MS 65 prooflike condition. This new information was a tremendous boon to the
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