1879-P VAM 74?

It would be nice to find out exactly where they are suppose to be and add a picture to VAMworld. You might want to ask on VAMworld about this one. It is a fairly newly listed VAM and it is possible there could be other die pairings.

Yes, I will post some more pictures today. Honestly, I strained my eyes for 30 minutes under 10x magnification and couldn't see any.





Wow that's awesome, thank you. Do you think it could be a new die pairing?

Here are some huge photos, hope they format correctly in the browser.

I added a picture of scratches beneath the right wing as a reference to how scratches/polishing lines should appear based on my lighting and camera set up.

Hope these help, Thanks!

I agree Dave, but it still would not hurt to investigate it and put the appropriate photos on the page if possible. Maybe another marker can be found in the ribbon area. It will take someone with the Die 2 reverse to compare coins.

Thank you for the help John. I thought it kind of looked like a long vertical die scratch going through the e in We, is that one of them?

I talked with Brian Raines, the guy that discovered the original VAM 74. He said he did not know there was even a revision and he had no idea who got the revision. Luckily John, (Messydesk) is also a VAM Veteran that knows pretty much everything about VAMs and has all of the updates and supplements (which usually include newly listed and revised VAM info and photos that can not always be found on VAMworld). If anyone is interested in buying supplements they are sold by Leroy Van Allen each year. I think you can even order previous years.

Thanks again for the info John. It really is nice to see you posting on this forum.

Kris

Yes, the scratch circled in blue is the one.

Regarding the supplements, if you use the VAMWorld attributions a lot, you really should buy the supplements from Leroy. He puts his life on hold every December for several weeks to get these produced so that we can have digests of what's new. Also, if you become adept at reading descriptions, they can be faster than navigating through VAMWorld doing attributions in some cases. Ordering instructions are on VAMWorld.

It is not a list coin yet. It was not even known of until 2012 and the Top 100 list was made many years before that, I believe in 1996. I would say this is a keeper for sure. Pitted dies have a strong following. The 74.2 would not be as interesting to buyers as the 74.1 because of the lack of pitting on the reverse, but it is definitely still a really good coin because the pitting on the obverse is located in an area that could not be easily cleaned up/polished out, so the die was likely terminated soon after making this coin. If it was a common VAM, there would have been many more reported and it would have been listed years ago. I don't know if the list is ever updated but there are lots of VAMs that are not on any list that will bring a lot more than many on the Top 100 list. I could see this coin being on a future list, if not the 74.2 the 74.1 will be on a list for sure (I know it is on my own personal list of VAMs to look for).

Kris

The pitted obverse being quite obvious to the naked eye and the fact that this wasn't discovered until 2012 is probably an indicator that it is at least scarce. As most pitted die Morgans are pitted reverses, this makes it additionally interesting. While I don't know what kind of premium it would have in the open market, I would not pass one up if I spotted one. It is not a list coin, and who knows if someone will eventually come up with a list that includes it. The list that matters to me is 1879 VAMs. I'm pretty sure Brian Raines is working on a die study for 1879, and should his findings show that this is a rare one, more eyes will be on it, and it will command a premium as a rare variety for the date. Also, for VAM collectors that aren't about to put together every date study and would rather do a date/mint set that had cool VAMs in it when possible, this would be a front runner for 1879, along with VAM 41.