The mint mark detail at VAMworld is erroneous.
This is C3b - the MM is diagnostic to a certainty. That limits you to three choices, as you know, and the date location is the first place to look as all three differ. Not to mention, V2 has a tilted date as well.
Except yours shows no denticles.
So what you do is follow the right edge of the stroke of the 1 up into the hair, and observe where it intersects. V2 and V11 are very close in this regard - they're a little less than half a denticle apart at the rim - but for my money, your date falls left of where V2 *could* by this measurement.
So in my opinion it's VAM-11. With that said, discount the R5 Rarity. These are purely estimates on Leroy's part unless evidence and experience by the community at large tends to inform them, and that's only happening with the more popular VAMs so far. This isn't one of those, and it would be considered bad form by the pedants among VAMmers (raises hand) to use that rating as an advertising hook.
One more possible telltale. I noticed something in the hair of the plate coin at VW - an apparent die scratch in the hair, here:
Look on the plate coin for what I mean - the line runs southwest-northeast from the tip of the curl - and then on your own coin for the same. Even worn, that location is protected and it should be visible on yours if it exists.
Only a positive result is definitive. I might be wrong about what I see on the plate coin, and it might have worn off the die before your coin was struck.
But if it's there on yours, too, I think we can call it a lock.
Posted 11/28/2012 12:12 pm
