Thoughts on this 1878 S Morgan

I was trying to do the Vam on this coin . I think I nailed it down to a Vam- 2 Broken R in trust, however I'm seeing a few things that are not mentioned in the vam #2 write up that are in other Vams for this date. Look over my images and see if you can attribute this as the same vam as I did. Given this is a raw specimen what would you grade her? Thanks in advance.

 

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It's considered that VAM-2 probably doesn't exist.

What does exist, thank Goodness, is a pretty good attribution guide. Your coin has a broken r in Trust (with the triangular structure left) and a broken 4th right star, so here's where you start:

http://www.vamworld.com/Full+triangled+shaped+r

I'm linking you there rather than continuing to ask for further detail images of specific places as we go since you seem to be happy working through the attribution process, and you have the coin in-hand.

Based on the available imagery, I'm considering it a slider which could go either way. Probably Mint State, though, as I don't consider high AU coins to be actually as common as the TPG's seem to.

 

V35 or V93 I'm thinking paddy,
But I don't have closeups on some of the areas needed.....
Superdave Posted a great(cheat sheet) for the broken R..... Should be pretty easy from here
Sidenote- even some '79s Morgan's have this broken R feature....

 

I'm confused on this whole VAM descriptive thing. No other coin has additional details like that sought out by collectors and also sometimes put on the coin. Sometimes they mention "Reverses" or wrong dies used to make "9s" from "8s" or special strikes or whatever but what's with the specificity of the VAM designation ?

And why do some MSDs not have any reference to VAM on their labels ?

 

VAMming is identical in every particular to the other variety attribution efforts of most other issues - it's an attempt to differentiate the die pairs, that's all. It's just that with over half a billion coins minted over the lifetime, the size of the task dwarfs anything attempted with numismatic attribution before. Of course the details are tiny in many cases; the law of averages says that the vast majority of die pairings are, um, average. How many other issues have die pairing/variety identifiers for one single year/mint measuring into the hundreds?

The reason some Morgans (I'm assuming you mean slabbed ones) aren't attributed is because neither PCGS nor NGC will attribute more than a small percentage of VAMs, most usually the ones which appear on an official "List." And neither are particularly trustworthy at attributing the ones they do. ANACS attributes them all, and their Director of Attribution Services, John Roberts, is a major player in VAMming because of his own original work contributing to the body of knowledge. He is easily one of the foremost living experts on Morgan Dollars.

 

Bottom line here,for some people(me especially)........
If you bought a Morgan dollar for $50 and it was worth say $50,000, wouldn't you like to know that information before selling???
Well that's what got me interested, find the right coin out in the wild,and BOOM!! MOON MONEY $$$$$$$

 

Thanks SD.....got it....any other coins where the 'die pairs' are ID'd ? I'm unaware of any other coin where it is done or anybody tried to do the in-depth research on this (fascinating that they could ID the die pairs almost a century after the coins were struck).

Is this of use and being done because SO MANY MSDs were made the VAM designation kind of differentiates them within any given year ? I mean, I'm not sure if you could ID the obverse and reverse dies for $20 Saints if anybody would really care. They are concerned with year, mint, strike, luster, etc.

 

Every single pre-Seated issue is already "complete" to that standard (subject to chance and very rare recent findings). Overtons for Bust Halves, Sheldons for Early Copper, Logan-McCloskey for Half Dimes, Bolender/Bowers-Borckardt for Dollars, etc. All of them are die pair identifications.

With the advancement of die and minting technology, and the huge mintages involved, chances are nothing newer than Morgans will be seriously attempted, and there's no guarantee we'll ever finish Morgans; with the Pittman Act melting there is strong argument against it even being possible.

 

Just to underscore this point a bit, consider that the highest pre-1921 mintage of Morgans was around 21M, and total mintage was 570M. Walkers exceeded the 21M mark 5 times, for a total mintage of 485M, but with around 2/3 as many date/mint combinations, making things on average at least 50% more difficult. I don't think many varieties of Walker are even identified besides overmintmarks, DDO/DDR, and missing AW varieties.

 

Thanks for your input, it's funny that I completely missed the broken star as I was looking at the 4th star on the left not right,plus it was very early this morning that I started to play with this coin. Let me see what's going on and will post my finding.

 

Well the prize goes to Heavy ...as you said a vam #35 or Vam #93. Jason you got a great eye on these Morgans. After several hours going through a load of Vam's on an 1878 S it's an Vam 93. see images posted to confirm the call. Cap spike two images shown in images. Broken B Image, 87 doubled in date,doubled L in motto,line in R of Liberty,all signs that point to an Vam 93 making this coin an R-4.
Thanks to all whom posted and helped out with this attribution. I would say in hand this coin is an easy MS- 65 as it has very clean fields, very few hits,nice strike and plenty of cartwheel luster. Thanks again for your help.

 

Thanks for the help/confirmation about a reliable expert on Morgans,got a new buy yesterday on an 1882 CC in the black box with quote by Nixon on the inside cover. once I get the local sheriff to stop the computer hackers from the interrupting my system/posts I'll send some decent photos to the group,thanks for all the great info/expertise it's saved a lot of time/money and mistakes on my part....

 

Uh oh, Paddy..... I think we may have a new Vammer in the makings here..... It has to be easier than looking at half dimes!!

 

Heavy I must admit half dimes are a cake walk..... but like most series it takes a little practice and good reference to hit the nail on its head.

 

Just like this one linked below. I picked it up for $50 because of the color and didn't even look it over for a standout vam first. Well, low and behold it's a killer vam. Now, without the color, and just being an ms63 1b6 thornhead vam it would be a $400-500 +/- coin but with the color too I could possibly get $1k-2k for it if I consigned it to heritage. The point I'm trying to make is to validate heavycam's statement. Big money can be made by finding a killer vam from a dealer who doesn't know any better.

https://www.cointalk.com/threads/1921s-toned-1b6.270168/#post-2280858

Then you have the relaxation aspect. It's very soothing to sit with a few morgans and vam them with the tv or music on in the background. Although it can get frustrating at times.

Then there's the academic aspect. With every morgan you vam you have a chance to find a brand new unlisted die pairing or die state. This is where it gets really fun because after you get confirmation by posting it at vamworld or by sending it to anacs or @messydesk (my preference of coarse) then you send it to the man who started it all for his review and if he agrees, you just added to the advancement of the hobby. There truly is nothing like morgan vamming. And peace vamming to a lesser extent.

Notice the sticker on the back of the slab on my 1b6 in the link. That's @messydesk's company VSS. He will attribute all morgan and peace dollars for a nominal fee and put his sticker on the slab. I don't even bother having pcgs attribute list vams on the labels of one's I send them as VSS is cheaper and he does them all plus if you have a new one he let's you know..

There truly is nothing else like it in numismatics. I actually have my first 2 possibly new vams being reviewed by the big guy right now that will hopefully be my first additions to the cause. And I'm super excited about it

 

Um, I don't think you're seeing this quite clearly....

 

Is the demand there? PCGS has 17 of these in MS63 now and one of them went for less than $300 at Heritage last December.

 

@Cascade
That's a very in-depth outlook and explanation on vamming.....
Make sure you share the results of your submission w us!!(as if u weren't already going to lol)
Btw, I would pay up for your 1B6 thornhead IF (and that's a big IF) I had that kinda cashflow

 

Wow, the amount of in-depth looking that you guys and other serious collectors do on these die strikes is amazing...looking at the lift...looking at the curve of the Serifs and whatsnots....wow.

 

Yeah, I might be a little heavy on a blast white 63. But the color is the big factor on mine that can't be quantified until it goes public which is not in its cards for the foreseeable future. I do feel confident though that somewhere around $1k would be a reasonable pre-auction estimate