What's Going On With This Morgan Dollar?

Those are die cracks. Morgan dollars, throughout their mintage, were at all times produced at the absolute maximum of the capacity of both the machinery and the hardware involved in their production. The dies used to mint them were by nature pushed past their physical limits, and the cracks you've illustrated in your images is proof.

SsuperDdave Summed it up perfectly.. As always..

As for value, it really depends on which VAM it is, which from die cracks alone we will not be able to tell. Check out Vamworld for 1904 VAMs (narrow it down by mint mark, which you haven't told us and no pics show) and try to match yours up. Or post full obverse and reverse pics here and we'll try to help you out..

Die cracks on Morgans are common, but depending on which VAM it is it may not be. Some VAMs are exceedingly rare, while most are quite common. I don't know near the amount about them as Dave so I can't tell you if there are any super value VAMs out of the 1904's or if there are any conditional rarities...

My 1904-O has the same cracks around the date, I don't remember the rest off hand.. But I haven't gotten around to VAMing it yet..

Dave,

I just realized I forgot to mention that this 1904 Morgan has an O mintmark. I briefly looked on Vamworld, but I really have no idea what I'm looking at. If any more photos are needed for identification I'll try my best to get some.

Yeah, agreed - I looked at every single 1904 plate photo on VAMworld for this thread.

You realize this conclusively proves we're both (like all VAMmers) nuts, right?

Agreed.. I enjoy hunting through VAM listings to help someone else as much as I enjoy it for myself! This is nuts (in a good sense of the term), right?

edit to add - I think this would be considered right edge of normal date position and mint mark tilted slightly left.

I guess I should expound a little. The coin you have is a late die state of the VAM-36 die pair marriage. The distinctive cracks nail the attribution. But Dave is right, the cracks do NOT make the VAM. The cracks only assist in attribution. The early die state (VAM-36A) was listed for the denticle impressions around the arrow heads on the reverse. As the dies wore from production, these denticle impressions disappear gradually. While this was going on, the cracks start to appear and progress in number, location and length. Once the denticle impressions disappear fully, the coin becomes the VAM-36.

By the way, the obverse die was retired likely due to it "blowing up" from the die cracks. The reverse was then re-married to a different obverse die (VAM-39.1) which became the VAM-49. The VAM-49 die marriage was short lived, due to the extensive cracking it had when it was married in the VAM-49 marriage.

As far as value of your coin, it is a generic 1904-O that carries no premium.