Learning VAM Attribution - Coin Community Forum

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Author	Replies: 6 / Views: 1,770
Kellyk Valued Member United States 255 Posts	Posted 09/12/2012 2:33 pm Good Morning! I just wanted to share about what I'm doing to learn VAMming. I took Seated Nuts advice and narrowed it down to a few dates...in my case one. 1878 . Next I searched posts for VAM attribution on this forum and cut and pasted as suggested. Then I read anything to do with 1878 coins or general info. Came across teaching strands VAM IT and How to Attribute VAMs. A 19 page post! ( thanks Aladdins Lamp, Super Dave and others who wrote that years ago>. Now I am practicing on ebay by searching for 1878-p VAMs, picking one randomly looking only at pictures. Then over to VAM World to VAM it. who would have believed how much fun this is? It is really kind of crazy... But it works for me. Report this Post to the Staff

SeatedNut Pillar of the Community United States 2797 Posts	Posted 09/12/2012 4:21 pm Kellyk, Over on VAMWorld there's a link to an 1878 Attribution Guide. I created one about three years ago and this one is an updated version by one of the VAMWorld super-techies. I did not see you mention this as one of your resources ... definitely add it and until you get the hang of 78's, refer to it constantly. It's a step-by-step guide that will put you in the ballpark in a nanosecond. I see you have the fever that I got 5 years ago. There are many more vammers these days and it's harder to "pick" treasures, but they are out there. I can only imagine the "gold fields" that were there in the late 90's when VAMming began to take off for real. Report this Post to the Staff
Windycity Valued Member United States 366 Posts	Posted 09/13/2012 08:31 am I hope you're ready for the ride. Once you're hooked on VAM's you can spend hours every day in the search. If you have a collection of Morgan, it's fun just to attribute you own coins. Enjoy! Report this Post to the Staff
aladinslamp Pillar of the Community United States 3076 Posts	Posted 09/15/2012 02:09 am KellyK to the world of treasure seeking !! Well its not so much for riches as it is in a "wealth of knowledge and the rush of the ride!!"... 1878 is THE PREMIER YEAR of "what could go wrong did"... As for us it's the best example of almost every type of error you can actually "SEE" without question!!. I say that as as one progresses into the extreme of Vamming, it can get down to very small "pimple like differences" as Scott likes to put it..But for the main feature, 1878 is the best...as it portrays true doubling, trippling and more to start with, these happened in the making of the dies...so without babbling on to rampantly of such things,, a great resource to learn what when why and how these things happened is the BOOK : The Comprehensive Catalog and Encyclopedia of Morgan and Peace dollars by Leroy C. Van Allen and A. George Mallis. it explains so much of the why and how these all came about... As for a quick crash course VamWorld's attribution 101 guide is very very good...it points out all of the things you need to consider when trying to have any understanding of what " VAM pick up points" are... Now every year is different as far as pick up points, but the primary principles apply to all years... 1878 is a great place to start, and Seated Nuts guide is "THE BEST" short cut, to catagorizing and narrowing your searches down to "few" rather than 200 plus evaluations.. THIS guides principles/ideas also apply to other years. mind you, 1878 is 1878 and 1892 vams are 1892 vams , but the analogy once you understand them apply to every year.. For instance, in 1878 the broken "R" was known to a small percentage of the whole series...so it really narrows your choices down...These ideas are now known as "Pick Up Points"...Vam it was a fun idea to try with this site to hone into a practice of observing the pickup point's and figuring out what the VAM was...Perhaps when things settle down We can have some more fun with this, if others are interested in doing this some more...Gene Report this Post to the Staff
twohawks Pillar of the Community United States 1551 Posts	Posted 09/16/2012 8:24 pm 1st Off! The reading is a must that has been recommended. As far as collecting is concerned their are a few trains of thought. 1st collect the Top 100 or Hot 50 and alike sub-sets, for some this is a way to go. 2nd look for coins that have features that "You" find interesting. For me finding a really nice coin is easy...it's the broken cracked up and busted die that to me are much rarer. Busted up dies do not make many coins before they explode from stress. 3rd Look for clashed coins, this I have found to be a great way to get started with ID'ing Vams. In most cases the clashs will be listed with an A or B in the VAM listing. So getting an understanding of the attribution table and method becomes much easier. "As long as there is Letter transfer" The hunt is the best part and you get out of it what you put in for the most part. A few years ago I was as green as a Golf Course! Everyone is a bit different and 1 size "Never fits All" .... Most of all we all started with no knowledge of what we now seek. Ask every question you have. If you do not understand something then it is not a dumb question to you. At the end of the day if someone thinks your stupid for asking.....then that person has forgotten that at some time in his or her past they did not know either! We are all here to learn and build relationships, helping fulfills both aspirations! Edited by twohawks 09/16/2012 8:26 pm Report this Post to the Staff
Bryan1315 Bedrock of the Community United States 14454 Posts	Posted 09/16/2012 9:42 pm are you concentrating on 1878-P 8TF, 1878-P 7/8TF, 1878-P 7Tf B1 reverse, 1878 7TF, 1878-S, 1878-CC or all of them? the reason I ask is there are some specialty books of just about each of these and I know LVA just released a updated version of the 78-S attribution guide Report this Post to the Staff
Kellyk Valued Member United States 255 Posts	Posted 09/18/2012 3:51 pm Hi again! Thanks for all of the encouragement. I have been busy determining which VAMS I have from Morgans I already own. Then I tried a crash course on digital photography so I could post some pictures of coins I have questions about. I 'm waiting for a card reader so I can download pictures...I'm hoping it'll be easier to determine the VAM with the enlarged images. My stack of identified VAMs is about the same height as my stack of unidentified! Some were easy; others, not so much! I did intentionally purchase my first Morgan that had a double date today and will attempt to VAM It after this post. Thanks again and I'll be posting questions as I go! Report this Post to the Staff
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