VAM 8B

Is that a good thing or bad?

VAM is an acronym for Leroy Van Allen and A. George Mallis, the two prominent numismatists who are responsible for identifying and categorizing all the die variants of Morgan and Peace dollars. A VAM is a die state or variation. Each individual year and mint has its' own set of VAM's, each of which starts with VAM-1, an original, normal coin. So, every single Morgan and Peace dollar has a VAM number assigned to it.

That is, of course, excepting the undiscovered ones. Mr. Mallis has passed away, but Leroy Van Allen is still going strong, inspecting coins and assigning new VAM numbers to varieties as yet unidentified.

Your VAM-8B could therefore describe almost any year or mint of Morgan or Peace dollar. An 1881-S VAM-8B could be entirely different than a 1901-O VAM-8B, depending on what characteristics were found, in what order, for that year. The "B" part is likely a sub-variant - for instance, a "regular" VAM-8 might not have any die damage, but a VAM 8A could have die cracks and VAM-8B could have clashes, all from the same specific die pair.

Woah!. It must be ESP. I got it right on the first example I gave.....


While not in the TOP 100 or Elite VAM's, it definitely is worth more to a VAM collector. How much more is a matter of market conditions.


BTW, if the reverse is the same as the obverse, I give it an MS64. HOWEVER, if that is a scratch on Liberty's cheek, and not on the plastic holder, I would lower it a notch or 2.


MM