I've got books for some of the sets I'm collecting. Since one of my recent coins was a Classic Head half cent AND I've got Breen's half cent book I decided to try again. I had a terrible time with Morgans and VAM identification. Never really made progress. My Classic Head half cents are now all ID'ed with only one that was a bit tough. Now I'll work on my Braided Hair set and then the few earlier ones I have. Nice part is that they are all XF or better so that wear hasn't wiped out some of the PUP's. Then I'll give Capped Bust half dimes a go (I have Logan and McCloskey's book). THEN after hopefully gaining enough experience and confidence I can go back and do a better job with the Morgans. Plus revisit my 2-cent coins and maybe do better with Flynn's book. BTW when I get to doing the Morgans is there a person or two here who can get me over the rough spots. It appears there were a LOT more dies used to strike them. The VAM book presents SO much info that I get overwhelmed.
I tried once with Flynn's book and it was marginal at best. And again all the coins are XF or better so loss of PUP's should not be an issue.
The big difference in difficulty of attribultion between things like VAM's, and two cent pieces, and Classic head half cents and capped bust half dimes is how the dies were made. Before 1836 the dies were created by punching individual features into the dies by hand. After 1836 the dies were made by full hubbing and the only feature punched in was the date and mintmark. So about the only other differences between the dies are die scratches, and other little small marks on the dies. And those features can come and then fade away as the die wears. This means variety identification is MUCH easier for the earlier coins.
You'll get no argument from me about this. Unfortunately the number of Morgan dies is VERY large relatively speaking. And I bet Seated Liberty coins are the same, lots of dies. That's why I'll stick to die ID's on the older, smaller sets. Capped Bust half dimes will be next. I'll have to revisit my 2-cent coins. As I recall I had a fair amount of difficulty with them. I'll leave to Morgans to last. Maybe practice with the smaller sets will help me.
