I recently won a 1886-P Morgan at the Dallas Coin Club raffle (slabbed MS63 by PCGS... not bad for a $20 raffle buy-in). One of the other members (a Morgan collector) took a look at it through a magnifying glass and said it looked like a VAM. I nodded my head, but really had no clue what he was talking about. After doing some online research, I'm still not sure what to look for. Apparently, the error variety has something to do with Morgan's "M" on liberties neck... but I'm not seeing anything out of the norm there. Are there any other things that I might be missing? I found this guide online: http://www.vamworld.com/1886-P+VAM-21
Every Morgan dollar is a VAM of some sort or another. And they are not errors, they are varieties. The VAM (Van Allen and Mallis) number just identifies the particular set of dies that were used to mint the coin. Your coin might be any VAM, or it might even be a new VAM as new ones are being discovered from time to time. Some of the members here are quite good at identifying the various varieties, so post pics of your coin and they can probably help you which one it is.
I doubt this resolution is high enough to ID the dies, but it's what I've got to work with. Which reference book would you recommend for learning more about die varieties?
Well, the Comprehensive Catalog and Encyclopedia of Morgan and Peace Dollars by Leroy Van Allen and A. George Mallis is considered the "Bible" when it comes to Morgan and Peace varieties. They are called VAM's which is an acronym for the authors' last names. The only problem is that it was last published in 1991 when there were about 1800 known VAM's. Today, there are over 4,000, but it also possible to purchase all of the back updates from Leroy. The book, itself, can be a little harder to find, but it is well worth the search effort as it provides not only historical information, but also detailed information on die making and production processes of the old cartwheels. Chris
And VAM World, the link you used in your first post, is probably the best place there is to study about VAMS.
