A beautiful coin. I'd say that ms-64 is a reasonable grade on it although it might push as high as 65. The major marks in the reverse fields would put it solidly in the ms64 camp for me though. The Whitman Morgan Redbook only mentions that there are "at least 89 obverse and 88 reverse dies" used. "None have dramatically different characteristics".
I think I see the pitting in the field under the arrows that defines this type, but that's kind of a lousy place to have scuffs on the slab.
Could be, but I wouldn't send it in until you satisfied yourself, as I can imagine I see i in your photo , but you can use a magnifier and see better. Compare with http://ec2-13-58-222-16.us-east-2.compute.amazonaws.com/wiki/File:1885-P-V1C-MHI-COMPS-c.jpg
VAM 1C is a little scarce, but not rare. It's popular because of the pitted die and on the Hot 50 list. The R6 rating was an estimate of its rarity at the time it was discovered, and really shouldn't be interpreted to be anything else, including an indication of value.
You'd be hard pressed to find anybody who's more an authority on VAMs than this guy - And for those who "don't" know who he is - http://vamworld.com/wiki/Messydesk https://www.varslab.com/res.html