Nice VAM discovered in my own collection ---> 1878 P VAM# 84a

There were no coin shows for me this last weekend so we spent some time on Saturday organizing the collection. Here is my story......

An old page of Morgans was lying on the table & I saw an 1878 labeled “Reverse of 1879”. This got me to thinking about the “Reverse of 1879”.... I couldn’t remember if the reverse of 79 was the one that has the tapered arrow feather or if it had the parallel arrow feathers. (Don’t you hate it when a piece of your memory-bank just disappears from your brain!). In any event, I picked-up the one labeled “reverse of 79” and another 1878 coin and began comparing the reverse arrow feathers. Holly-cow, the 1878 that I grabbed at random had a long nock on the center arrow. Holly-cannoli, the obverse was all over-polished so that the nostril was completely missing. There are die cracks all around the reverse and some on the obverse. In the proper light, you can see a clashed E under the eagle’s feathers. About 40 seconds later I was on VAMWORLD.COM to see what I had just discovered in my own collection.

I’m sure that you VAM guys know how exciting this got for me as I plugged away at the VAMWORLD photos. Here is the coin (cherrypicked from my own collection).

 

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Cherrypicked from my own collection

Here are close-up photos taken of the coin. You can visually see the E under the eagle’s tail feathers but I had trouble getting the “E” to show up in any of the close-up photo attempts. Believe me, the clashed E is there along with this die clash at the throat of Liberty on the obverse. This is what apparently makes it the 84a and not the 84.

 

Here you can see the over-polished nostril (and eye).

 

Here you can see the L of LIBERTY is in low relief to the field.

 

Here you can see the die crack extending from the stars (obverse at 4:30) to the denticles.

 

Here you can see the dash under the first 8.

 

Here you can see the broken D in DOLLAR. This is a key pick-up-point for VAM 84.

 

Here you can see the long nock on the arrow. Notice that the arrow feathers above & below are parallel making it an obvious reverse of 1878.

 

It was crazy fun finding it

Please let me know if there is anything missing in my attribution of this coin.

 

Looks good to me. Nice pics by the way. One of these days I really need to go through mine with my VAM book. I could have a rare variety and not even know it.
Guy

 

Do it.

It is awesome to find new treasures in your own collection. :yes:

 

Hey Collect, what does the VAM site have this for the rarity scale?

 

I don't know.
I did find some VAM84a sales listed for about $150-$200 slabbed in MS63 so I don't imagine it is very rare. I'd be interested in learning what the VAM guys at CT have to say.

 

old thread but I just picked up a AU-58 for 75.00