Double mint mark & long nock 1878 VAM 79 found in Morgans (Photos) I just bought 96 Morgan Dollars for $13 each. About 60% of them looked low MS with the rest AU or body bag material. After this initial inspection, I looked at the reverses to see if there were many mint marked coins. On page three, I found a clearly double mint mark. You could see it very clearly. There was a C separated horizontally from another distinct C. That’s right, there was an extra fine 1878 CC dollar on page three! The next night I spent some time looking for VAMs. Please check out these photos depicting the over polished nostril, doubled star, and long nock on this 1878. I believe this one is 1878 VAM 79. [Am I correct?] The coin condition is MS62/63. I’d like to hear from you VAM experts about this one. From what I can find, it has a very low population in MS and I would like to know your opinions about the best venue & price to sell something like this. I’ll photograph & post some of the other varieties I find in this batch of Morgans. Very best regards, Collect89
The only other significant VAM found in this lot (so far) is this 1890 VAM 9. It has a die chip in the G of god. Very best regards, collect89
Hello Jello, I will take more photos tonight. I will need to remove it from the 2x2 for the photo & prepare the coin for TPG submission. I've been searching for records of past sales & have not found any recorded sales in MS. I'll let you know what the VAM Website people have to say about population & value. Very best regards, collect89
population data Here is the apparent population data for this 1878 VAM 79 Morgan: PCGS has 21 MS coins. ANACS has 52 MS coins. NGC has 16 MS coins. I suspect that some of these coins have been re-submitted back & forth between the three companies. Very best regards, collect89
Great finds! I would say there all correctly attributed. The only thing I found interesting was on your 78' Long nock, the leaves of the olive branch are still connected, but in the VAM 79 they are disconnected. Now I could be wrong, but I believe the disconnected leaves were from over polishing, and not just die wear, which would mean your coin would have to be a different variety.
Nice finds, and sounds like a nice price for the dollars as well... CONGRATS! They certainly are cool looking
Hello Raider, Thanks for focusing on the disconnected leaf. I took your observation back to the VAMWorld guys & they quickly determined that it was not the VAM 79 but rather a VAM 84. The key diagnostic to it being the VAM 84 is that the L in LIBERTY is also quite polished-down. Very best regards, collect89
That one was a tricky one, those guys at VAMworld are good. Sorry it's not the 79, still a great find though.
Actually, the guys at VAMWorld agreed & attributed it as the VAM 79. They even placed my photographs on their page for the VAM 79. You were the one that questioned the non-disconnected leaf. I wonder what a 1878 VAM 84 is worth in MS62/63?
Price History: 1878-P VAM-84 PCGS MS65 eBay $975 1/23/07 1878-P VAM-84 NGC MS62 $86.50 VAMquest 3/07 Here's form VAMworld, I'll see if I can find anything on eBay.
Only one at auction (like 4 days left), it looks high AU, and then there's a few BIN. vam 84, Coins Paper Money, eBay Motors items on eBay.com
This is a VAM-84 not a VAM-79. The dash under the first 8 in the date is the main characteristic of an 84. The feather of the arrow not being disconnected makes any 7TF (not 7/0) Long nock either a VAM-83 or 84 and the 83 has a high 1 in the date
actually all those pictures except for the top one and the bottom one on VAMWorld are pictures of mine in my #2 NGC registry set of B1 Reverse 1878 Morgans that I uploaded on there a couple years ago