I don't exactly see what is special about these varieties. Is it a die defect? Something with the tail feathers or arrows? What does Top-30 mean? I've had a few top-100 VAMs, but they sold for very small premiums, so apparently that is meaningless. Or is it all some silly game that only Morgan enthusiasts can understand and appreciate? I'm not demeaning your coins. They are very nice and well-bought.
1878s is a very popular date to collect and it has been extensively studied. The top-30 is a list of the what, I believe, Leroy Van Allen & Craig Lickenbrock, thought were the 30 best varieties that were worth hunting down. The VAM 1D1 has a nice series of gouges in the lower tail feathers and VAM 8.1 has an engraved wing and engraved patch in the middle of the right wing... http://www.vamworld.com/1878-S+VAM-1D http://www.vamworld.com/1878-S+VAM-8
30 best for 1878 S or the whole Morgan series? I can think of 30 much more interesting VAMs of other dates. And I guess the decimal digits (eg. 8.1) are die states?
For the 78s series When a vam is decimal pointed like 8.1/8.2 it means die pair 1 and die pair 2 of vam 8. When it is a letter like 8A, 8B etc or a number with no decimal point after a letter like the above 1D1 / 1D2 it is a different die stage/stage of the same die pairing
So a VAM is just on one die. Nothing like early US die marriage varieties. But oh well. Two Morgans are enough for me.
A VAM at its core is a die pairing, nothing more, nothing less. The identification of a specific obverse die that was married to a specific reverse die. How one specific VAM can sometimes have multiple die pairings listed still isn't quite clear to me though. Maybe @messydesk can elaborate on that.
I asked that question to JB, JR and RS at the Dallas ANA show last year and I still find it puzzling.
VAMs are just slight differences studied in the dies of morgan and peace silver dollars if that was your question.
I know what die varieties are. I was just not able to spot anything significant about the coins posted (RPD, DDO, RPM, 7TF, etc.). Apparently the only thing that was special about them were some die scratches and reengraved patches.
Well they can't all be super-wow's like the 89p v23A but a big gouge in the tail feathers and a cool engraved wing patch are neat and unusual
I purchased this 1948-D Jefferson Nickel in an ANACS MS66 5FS slab in January 2010 for $47. I promptly cracked it out an put it in my album collection. A few years ago, I had to submit 5 coins to NGC to fulfill my membership purchase and this coin made the cut. It came back NGC MS67 5FS, which was a top pop at the time but I believe some 67+ have since been graded.