1893-S Morgan Dollar
Key dateThe lowest business-strike mintage in the series at 100,000, and the date most collectors treat as the series key. Most of the mintage circulated, so mint-state survivors are exceptionally few.
Mintage
- Business strikes
- 100,000
- Mint
- San Francisco (S)
- Mintage rank
- 2 of 96
Rank 1 is the lowest business-strike mintage in the series. Mintage is what the Mint produced, not what survives: some 270 million silver dollars were melted under the Pittman Act of 1918 without the dates being recorded, and several issues sat in Treasury vaults for decades before release.
Reading the figure
It is the smallest of the 28 San Francisco issues in the series. Of the 1,455,000 struck across all mints in 1893, this issue accounts for 7%. Carson City struck 6.8 times as many that year. The 1893 split ran Carson City 677,000, Philadelphia 378,000, New Orleans 300,000 and San Francisco 100,000. The series median is 5,000,000, so fewer than half as many of these were struck as a typical date. Series-wide output fell that year: 1,455,000 against 6,332,000 in 1892. 1893 was the 2nd smallest production year of the 28 in the series.
Every sentence above is computed from the mintage table on this page, not asserted separately.
Scarcity tier
Key date
Assigned from reported mintage alone: under 750,000 is a key date, under 2,500,000 is a semi-key.
This is a reproducible label derived from the mintage column, not a market valuation and not a Coin Curator price opinion. The same thresholds apply to every series on this site. Several dates are far harder or far easier to obtain than their mintage implies; where that is true, it is stated above.
What to check before buying
Specific to the 1893-S:
- 1This is the most counterfeited and most frequently altered date in the series, commonly produced by adding an S mintmark to an 1893-P. Buy certified, and verify the certification number against the grading service's own lookup.
- 2Compare the S mintmark shape and placement against published photographs of genuine examples.
And for any certified coin
Verify the certification number on the grading service’s own lookup rather than from a photograph of the label, match the listing images to the certification record including grade and any variety attribution, look for cleaning, compare the mintmark against published photographs of the genuine issue, and read the return policy before buying. The grading guide covers each of these in full.
Coin Curator does not grade, authenticate, or appraise coins, and publishes no price or population data. These are verification steps, not a valuation.
Verify a certification number
Look a 1893-Scertification number up on the service’s own site. A photograph of a label proves nothing.
Each service publishes its own guarantee with conditions and exclusions. Compare PCGS, NGC and ANACS.
Find a 1893-S for sale
Opens an eBay search for this exact date and mint. Coin Curator does not list inventory, hold stock, or quote prices; verify each listing, seller, and return policy directly.
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Common questions
How many 1893-S Morgan dollars were minted?
The San Francisco Mint struck 100,000 1893-S Morgan dollars for circulation. That is the 2nd lowest business-strike mintage of the 96 date and mintmark combinations in the series.
Is the 1893-S Morgan dollar a key date?
Coin Curator labels it a key date, assigned from reported mintage alone: under 750,000 struck is a key date and under 2,500,000 is a semi-key. The same thresholds are used for every series on this site, so the tiers are comparable between them. That label describes production, not market value or how hard the coin is to find today. The lowest business-strike mintage in the series at 100,000, and the date most collectors treat as the series key. Most of the mintage circulated, so mint-state survivors are exceptionally few.
What should I check before buying an 1893-S Morgan dollar?
Verify the certification number on the grading service's own lookup page, match the listing photographs to the certification record, check for cleaning, and compare the mintmark shape and position against published photographs of the genuine issue. This is the most counterfeited and most frequently altered date in the series, commonly produced by adding an S mintmark to an 1893-P. Buy certified, and verify the certification number against the grading service's own lookup.
Related dates
Guides for this coin
All guides →Morgan Dollar Key Dates and Varieties
The 1893-S, 1895 Proof-only, 1889-CC, and important VAM varieties show why date, mint, attribution, and condition must be researched together.
1 min readVintage GuideCarson City Mint: Why CC Coins Command Premiums
Carson City Mint operated 1870-1885 + 1889-1893. Coins from the silver mined down the road. Low mintages, frontier-era history, and the iconic CC mint mark, the most romantic coins in US numismatics.
2 min readEducationWhat Makes a Coin a “Key Date”, and Why It Drives Value
Coins from the same series can differ sharply in availability and demand. Learn how date, mintmark, variety, grade, and surfaces shape key-date research.
1 min readBuying GuideApproachable Key-Date Coins to Research First
Seven dates that teach scarcity, identification, grade tradeoffs, and counterfeit-aware buying, without promising a fixed price or resale result.
1 min readMintage sources
Mintage figures are U.S. Mint production records, cross-checked against the published tables below on 2026-07-31. Where those tables disagree, the disagreement is disclosed on the affected page rather than resolved silently.
- Wikipedia, "Morgan dollar" mintage figures table — Cites Yeoman (A Guide Book of United States Coins) and Van Allen & Mallis.
- CoinMintages.com, Morgan dollar mintages — Lists business strikes and proofs separately, including the 1878 tail-feather varieties.
- GovMint, Morgan silver dollar mintage chart — Published as sourced from U.S. Mint records.
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