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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;messydesk, post: 2728782, member: 1765&quot;]Some general advice:&nbsp; Date position only comes into play from 1884-1904.&nbsp; Mint mark position is helpful for most years.&nbsp; While this implies that 1878-1883 Philadelphia coins are harder, 1878 has been studied for a long time and has the best information.&nbsp; 1880 and 1883 have also been studied closely, but are more difficult.&nbsp; Don&#039;t bother trying your 1881 or 1882 unless there is obvious repunching on the date or other major die anomaly.&nbsp; Beware of strike/machine/ejection doubling, especially with 1880-S through 82-S.&nbsp; The fresher the die, the sharper the design, the easier it is to see doubling on the date and close to the rim.&nbsp; Don&#039;t start in on 1921, as it can be far more overwhelming than other dates.&nbsp; Start by taking a look at the Top 100 and Hot 50 varieties, because they show how lots of major anomalies manifest themselves.&nbsp; These lists were created to focus people on the more significant varieties, and just about everything on these lists is pretty easy to attribute.</p><p><br /></p><p>The payoff in doing this comes in many forms.&nbsp; First, you may actually find a rare, valuable die pair. Thanks to the definition of rare, this is unlikely for any given coin, but becomes more and more likely the more coins you look through.&nbsp; Second, you may get simple pleasure out of solving a puzzle which can be difficult to solve, much as someone would from solving a hard sudoku or crossword.&nbsp; Third, you may observe things that make it more easy for you to understand how dies are made, used, and wear out.&nbsp; Fourth, you will be immunizing yourself against buying counterfeits.&nbsp; I guess I could go on and on about this, but everyone is different in what they enjoy about aspects the hobby, and attributing Morgan dollars and collecting die varieties or die marriages is no different.</p><p><br /></p><p>Feel free to ask more questions here or on VAMWorld.&nbsp; In order to post on VAMWorld, your request to join needs to be approved by the NSA Cyber-security Czar (I&#039;m not kidding -- really), so it won&#039;t be instantaneous.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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