VAM Rarity Question

A moth to flame comes to mind when I read Zee's post. In many respects, to question accepted VAM dogma is considered heresy in some circles. But if one truly wants to understand what we are seeing, we must look into the past and visualize and understand the dynamics that are in play as well as apply forensics to understand.
We are presented with these tantalizing clues and we must make sense of what we see. It is assumed that because the mint at New Orleans generally has high humidity and the mint at San Francisco doesn't that must be the reason for pitting. Most will not give it a second thought as it makes (superficial) sense. But how do you get pitting that is progressive? We now have a 1887-O VAM 22 A that is listed as early die state (EDS) precisely because there is not as much pitting as the plate photo of a very difficult to locate top 100 coin. No less a luminary as Leroy Van Allen has quantified that pitting is progressive. Now we must apply physics to understand the how and why that could occur (or as some have surmised can not occur)
Vamming is numismatic forensics and believe it or not, this thread has advanced the honest discussion to examine the premise of what we blithely assume as fact. If only the coiners of yesteryear were here today to answer our questions the stories they could tell.

I further the example of left over debrie from the polishing

For me, this is the law of simplicity... reduce it to its simplest form. For pitting having to be uniform if caused by rust, does not make sense to me. If your car starts to rust, does it do it uniformly? No, because the conditions need to be right for the metal to rust... in most cases, salt, oxygen, and a little dampness. Now if any of those are missing on parts of the coin which is very possible, then pitting and rusting will not be uniform. Debris left over from polishing does not look like pitting. Look at DMPL and PL coins that still have left over look from polishing. Below is an example. Notice what the left overs look like. There are pieces of the wire brush and such, but more importantly, there a polish lines. Many of the pitted/rusted coins do not have these heavy polish lines on any known example. So it is hard for me to accept that as the solution. (not that I refuse... just not enough evidence for me to change my mind yet... I love these kinds of topics... makes me think) I apologize Dave, I have to use a photo you cant see right now... This is an 1883-O PCGS 63PL which is just, post polishing.

Some things to think about. The Morgan & Orr coin press could mint up to 90 coins a minute. On a eight hour day that means up to 43,200 coins. A 10 hour day the machine was capable up to 54,000 coins. I am not sure how long the average day was at the mint. Or how many breaks were allowed for the coiner or apprentice.

Here is the average life of a die for the years 1878-1904's broken down by mint:
Philadelphia - 217,679
New Orleans - 151,208
San Francisco - 121,930
Carson City - 62,441

The complete average die life for a Morgan dollar die from any mint overall is 160,411.

So for rust to develop it would presumably have to be over night, over the weekend or perhaps the location where they were stored and then go unnoticed by the coiner and apprentice or perhaps ignored by the coiner and apprentice.

The vamming community is fascinated by pitting of dollars and it seems to me that pitting occurs in stages.

We need to examine the die steel and it's chemical make up relative to susceptibility to rust. As far as I know, this is unknown.
So at this point there is the strong possibility of rust as the culprit.

ALL things being considered, rust is not prone to be certain locations specific..My meaning is simply as you have suggested the car, which has paint on it and inhibitors so rust doesn't occur within the first 5 years LOL or more hopefully.. but we will not get into the paint issues, as I have many years in paint experience, more over I do believe that humidity does play an important part, Due to the fact as over the years in a dry climate where I was born and there are still cars in the fields that are not RUST RIDDEN with holes of cancer...They don't call it old tin for nothing....but still.......our issue is here does the pitting come form. or how most likely is it caused.;
AS I see it there are two very plauseable ideas on the table......
ONE rust... however most coins don't have a uniform rusting or PITTING
which in the coin pressed staqe result of WHAT.... an overall pitting of the entire surface, as in 1904-0 VAM 4 and its subverities.....
OR would rust or pitting be proned to be location specific?
OR lets concider Die Deterioration....where the die has or is going beyond its life expectancy.....yet the whole field shows the degredation of the die, yet in most examples of PITTING the rest of the entire coin is well within standards........
THIS POINT YOU CAN NOT ARGUE AGAINST....the plate photo's confirm this point..only 1904-0 has the unique rust over the entire OBV,, but wait. I think there is another. But I am no expert, never wanted to be. REMMEY when your gun got wet it only rusted in one place as the most of the pitting examples of coins do...only in a spot or two..
SOMETHING TO MAKE US THINK about..

The gun would rust where the moisture was. (I am sure SuperDave can attest to this as he has personally experienced this... maybe you have too... GO PRIMERS!) Now if left in the case for multiple days it would quickly cover the rest of the barrel. (assuming there was enough moisture... sometimes it would rust the one spot because that is all the moisture that was there) But that is due to moisture distribution within the case. This to me proves that rust IS location specific. You MUST have ALL the environment variables present for rust to occur. Metal, a catalyst such as salt, and moisture. Therefore if conditions aren't just right, no rust. You keep mentioning the 04-O series of the 1 pitted coin that has all over the obverse pitting.I explain this by that particular die having extensive rust prior to polishing. Hence the uniform pitting across the entire dies field. Look at the 82. 3, 4-O series and all the pitting in those coins. Most examples are VNA's Sometimes is is just on the eagle... little dots all over the place. This IMO was a die with little rust prior to polishing. the flat fields are even... This makes sense to me... First the eagles field on the die was depressed and IMO more susceptible to retaining moisture. Second think of how the polishing brush works... The depressed fields of the die will be less affected by the brushes, however the flat fields will have a good work-over and successfully remove enough metal to correct the rust issue. As for Die Deterioration, I believe we know what this phenomenon looks like, and though it IS exhibited on some examples of pitted/rusted dies, how do you explain the earlier examples and as Oz has pointed out, the progression. Rust is the ONLY thing right now that IMO holds any water. It can explain all features exhibited on the coin from EDS to LDS. Up to and including the progression of the pitting.

My open mind is wanting more evidence that a different theory is more realistic and also covers progression.

My understanding of pitting is these were sudden onset events of dies already in service.