So PCGS has Hot 50 (<---click link for example) on some labels. Are they saying "hot" as in popular at the time of grading?
Every few months, the VAM folks come out with a new list of varieties. There's a Top 100, and a Hot 50, and an Amazing 75, The 63 Blessed by the Hand of God, and the 42 Which Bestow the Meaning of Life, if you can assemble them all. I suspect they'll keep publishing new lists until every single one of the 94,768 varieties are on one list or another. Some of these lists are designated by the TPGs. None of them mean anything to non-Vammers, and I suspect some of them don't mean anything to Vampires. *sarcasm intended for comedy*
There are a few "lists" of the some of the best and most popular VAMs when they were created. The TOP-100, HOT-50, HIT LIST-40, WOW, KIMPTON 12, SUPER CD, and the latest is actually a very old one that has many VAMs on it that are already in the other lists; the KLAES 50... VAMs on these lists tend to carry premiums from miniscule to ridiculous
It was about 10 years ago that VAMming really started to gain momentum, and it was helped along by the VAM View Price Guide. There were Morgan and Peace dealers at the big shows who didn't want to get caught with their pants down, so they made it a point to get a copy of the price guide to thwart the cherrypickers. What a joke! For example, one of my favorites in the Hot 50 group was the 1885-CC VAM-4 Doubled Dash. The VAM View Price Guide listed it at $2500 in MS65. I followed the price of this coin for about 8 years, and I was happy when I sold my PCGS MS65 at auction for $1250. Chris
I do not collect Morgans/VAMs specifically, so any special VAM on a coin I have means I can hopefully get more money from it than I paid. Any VAM on a coin I want to buy probably means they want to charge more than I want to pay.
Aside the original Top 100 - which IMO was a little premature and contains some coins which are like "but we gotta get one in from this year" - the later lists are reflective of the more interesting and therefore naturally value-adding VAMs. They're a pretty good guide to what you might expect a premiun for. The lists are also an easier way to collect by variety when the alternative is accumulating 6,000 different coins....
Isnt there an elite clashed list too? Or is that the Super CD? I think I have the book on it. I like how there are only two lists for peace dollars. Top 50 and elite 30 lol
They sound like a music hits list. Would have been great if they could have gotten Casey Kasem to read them out loud one by one.
Guesstimate; it's been a while since there were 5k. There are something like 96 different date/MM combinations in the Morgan series, plus another 24 Peace Dollars, and although there are of course some dates with very few combinations there are others with as many as 200+ known.
