Will someone please direct me to a website or two describing the types of Hot 50 and Top 100 VAMs, maybe with a picture or two? I have read several times that basically every Morgan is a VAM. I realize they are saying that Morgan's inherently have odd markings. Thanks in advance.
The reason that is true is because Van Allen and Mallis categorized every iteration of a given Morgan date, and what they chose as the "normal," original die state for each year was assigned VAM-1. It's true that for many issues there was doubling or die chips or something which departed from a theoretically "perfect" die impression on even the "standard" VAM-1. Therefore, every Morgan is a VAM. It's part of the beauty of the series.
Or - a very clever marketing technique for one of the most common of all older coins. The same thing is true of any coin series/type.
How clever is it if every coin series has it? I suppose it was clever for the first people who came up with die attribution, but it strikes me as following the leader by everyone else. Not that I'm opposed to it, I love trying to attribute Bust halves!
