1888-O

The 1888-O, at 12,150,000 pieces, ran the largest New Orleans Morgan Dollar output of the late 1880s and continued the southern mint's expanded role in absorbing the Bland-Allison Act silver-dollar production. The 1888-O carries the standard Reverse of 1879 hub configuration; the year's specialist collecting interest is anchored by the famous 1888-O Hot Lips doubled-die obverse variety catalogued separately on this site, where Liberty's mouth shows dramatic doubling visible without magnification. The variety is among the most-collected doubled dies in the entire U.S. coinage market.

Strike quality on the standard 1888-O follows the established New Orleans pattern, with Liberty's hair above the ear consistently soft and the eagle's breast feathers showing typical O-mint weakness. Most surviving examples grade VF to MS63 from circulation and broken Treasury bag releases, with PCGS, the Professional Coin Grading Service, and NGC populations clustering at MS62 and MS63. MS64 is available and MS65 is condition-scarce, with the strike-related grade ceiling adding meaningful premium at the top tier of the certified pool. The 1888-O is a moderately tough O-mint pickup above MS63 because of the cumulative late-1880s O-mint strike issues.

The 1888-O is a regular common date and a standard New Orleans Morgan acquisition at the mid-grade level. Pricing has held flat for two decades at small premiums above the 1887-O. The 1888-O pairs naturally with the 1887-O and 1889-O at the entry-grade level for O-mint date-set collectors, while the Hot Lips doubled-die variety adds dramatic specialist demand on top of the base date pricing. Modern New Orleans Morgan collecting reflects the post-1962 Treasury vault release of original O-mint bag inventory, which permanently anchored the rarity tier and pricing structure across the series. PCGS and NGC certified-pop distributions skew toward MS63 and MS64 reflecting bag-release survival rather than pre-1950 collector preservation. For the New Orleans Mint operating context and the broader O-mint strike-quality pattern, see the Morgan Dollar series history.