Hello All, Looking for a little input. It appears that a die crack is circling the reverse of this 1892-O Morgan. The crack is around the top of the legend, most noticeable near the top of UNIT. However, if you look, the crack appears near the top of the legend at several spots on the coin. What do you think? Die Crack or overly enthusiastic collector? Thanks
Die cracks of this sort are common on Morgans. These particular cracks can be used to identify which VAM you have.
I looked a bit on http://www.vamworld.com/1892-O+VAMs and I'm no expert on VAMs but I'm going to guess VAM3 or 3a(closed 9)... I can't tell from the pics but is the bottom of the 1 closer to the edge than the bottom of the 9? That would make it any of a number of other possibilities. Maybe pics with less glare will help those that can say for sure. Expect to have to take some closeups Lets wait for others to chime in...
VAM3 looks to be an accurate guess, it's hard to tell on the actual coin if there are pits near the L U R or just scratches. The 9 does look "closed", but the die pits would confirm it better. (note to self: work on improving photography skills).
As Hobo said, die cracks are common on Morgan dollars. The pressure used to strike these coins was 130-150 tons psi. Unless there is substantial metal displacement, a die crack would not be attributed except for determining die state. Chris
