Owner Comments:
Mintage 5,004,646
Minted at Philadelphia without mintmark
In my hunt for a MS-70 graded 1988 American Silver Eagle, I found them to be very expensive (upwards of $2000 each). That being said, I decided to cherrypick an attractive MS-69 example for my collection. However, finding an example without milk spotting was exceedingly difficult ! But, cherrypicking did pay off with the example I acquired. This MS-69 1988 is a sharply detailed example on the obverse/reverse with an attractive sharp strike on all the prime focal areas, full original mint blast white luster, and exceptional eye appeal. Probably the reason it did not grade a MS-70 is that it does have two minuscule (and non-detracting) contact marks on the reverse fields in non-focal areas. No hairlines on the surface of the coin, milk spots, scuff marks or other flaws can be seen in the fields at 7x magnification.
Numismatic and Financial News: In this year, the stock market crash of October 1987 did not do much to shake the fundamentals of the American economy. Many investors turned to rare coins to try to outperform the stock market. Some investment firms even established "rare coin funds". In May 1988, the ANA scheduled a three day seminar on how to grade rare coins. The emergence of the third party grading services and the promise of standardized grading helped fuel this growth segment within the hobby. Still, wealthy novice collectors without the highly technical knowledge and deep understanding of numismatics found themselves the victims of unscrupulous telemarketers and dealers. In response to this threat, the ANA and the Federal Trade Commission co-conspired to publish a brochure entitled " Consumer Alert: Investing in Rare Coins" which intent it was to inform and educate consumers in investing in coins.
The demand for the 1988 Silver Eagle was less than half of the 1987 issue with only just above 5 million coins sold.
The average silver price in 1988 was $6.52/ounce.