Still, our Ancients questions seem to always be answered from the perspective of Modern Coins and their acronyms viewpoints...
after reading this, deciding to give my"Carson" a break and ordered a 30 and 60 x loupe for 5.99 and the illuminated one discussed above, (along with cat food to get the freee shipping, lol) so it is on it's free ship way!!
Yes, my apologies. I thought about that... (If anything, I am an ancients guy. I have not done much with U.S.). You probably googled it. VAM: Van Allen and Mallis for their cataloguing of every Mint error in a useless but big and shiny and (I admit) nicely designed coin. (The Morgan Dollar. The Peace Dollar has a nice obverse, but the Reverse was the botched work of an angry and aged George Morgan.) This is why coin collectors want electron microscopes. You see, the Mint was forced to strike millions of these every year, just to consume silver. The price of silver had collapsed because of the Comstock Load, which brought more new silver into the world than existed at that time. So, mining interests found a supporter in U.S. Senator Richard P. "Silver Dick" Bland. As a way to appease miners in the West and other silver supporters, the Bland-Allison Act of 1878 ordered the Treasury to buy $2 million to $4 million in silver from the miners each month. The bill was also a way by some congressmen to return the United States to bimetallism. Twelve years later, the Sherman Silver Purchase Act followed, with similar intent, requiring the United States government to buy an additional 4.5 million ounces of silver bullion every month. However, the government could do so with gold notes, which was driving silver out of circulation. -- "Crime of '73" at the US Mint here: https://www.usmint.gov/news/inside-the-mint/mint-history-crime-of-1873 At that level of production, quality control as we understand it today was impossible. Errors were common. Some people care and pay a lot for them.
Well, you inspired me to turn that comment into a blog post. See here: https://necessaryfacts.blogspot.com/2020/04/mistakes-happen-vam-varieties-us-silver.html
