Doubling On 1921-P Morgan (Update)

Look at the picture in the Washington quarter thread in this forum and look at the bottom of the "R"....The doubling is very minute but you can still see the splits in the serifs at the bottom.

Old topic I know but big update:

It is, in fact, a double die. On the front. On the back it's a tripled die. Aka a VAM-50.

I showed it to a specialist and he looked at it under a special microscope. There is in fact tripling all across ED STATES OF, and there's doubling on the left and a few of the right stars. Now you may be thinking, why do the pictures make it look like it like Machine Doubling? The answer is simple: I scanned it in using a 5 year old scanner that is only meant for scanning documents. So it only will pick up the significant parts of the tripling on S OF. If I had one of those fancy microscope cameras, I'd show you pictures. But alas, I don't.

So I have to say congratulations, NGiles, your amature status was actually correct.

Here's VAMworld's VAM listing of it. http://www.vamworld.com/1921-P+VAM-50

Unfortunately, your conclusion isn't correct. Look at the shape of the inside of the O in the word OF. The shape is substantially different indicating different dies . So the pictures you are using as comparisons can not be the same coin. If I understand your post correctly, your pictures rule out the Doubled Die you are hoping it is.

Also, it is OK to name the specialists that look at the coins. We probably know them.

If this is hub doubling, it would take better images, as the owner of the coin points out, to tell that it is hub doubling. I still lean on the side of Machine Doubling.

And, by the way, the term is "doubled die" - not "double die".

I used to use a flatbed scanner for all the images published in my column until I got a digital camera. The scanner will not change the shape of the inside openings of the letters.

Your comparison coins are different dies so regardless of the way the image was created, they are not the same coin.

Realize that dies were sometimes hubbed as many as a dozen times when the dies were created for Morgan dollars. The kind of superficial doubling that you see around the edges of lettering is incredibly common and can be seen on almost every coin to one degree or another.

I once posted on diagnostics and how to use them. The two coins being compared are different and that is the key thing here. If it don't fit you must aquit:-)

Hi,

I just want to clarify something just to be sure that we are on the same page. A VAM is a designation given to a coin based upon a particular die or die pair used to strike the coins. That means , for example and using a VAM-50 as the example, every single detail must be identical since every VAM 50 had to be struck by the same die.

So with minor variations depending upon die state, everything is identical. The same leter shapes, the same die markers, the same doubling etc.

You don't attribute a VAM # to a coin if it has some of the same attributes, it has to have all the attributes.

I wasn't sure exactly what you were indicating and you , of course may know all that I just posted, I just wanted to state this to be sure we are in the same place.

So, if for example, the openings in the O of OF are indeed different on each coin, the coin can not be matched up.

Thanks,
Bill

After further research, I must admit that what the pictures show, is more in the lines of Machine Doubling. I will admit that I have only been collecting coins for about a year now, I am an amature. I trust the judgement of the other people on the forum. I joined the forum to learn form them.

When you get new pics of the coin it would be great to see them, I will check them with the references I have. Maybe the person you took it to can get some pictures of it for you.