1921-D Morgan Dollar

That is a nice looking coin! Great Photos. I would say it is. The cracks all match up. I don't see the capped R so it must be one of the early stages. Nice find!

Thanks 7TF, surprisingly took these pictures with my phone!

Thanks SD, this is my first VAM, so I'm not surprised it's common lol.

It almost appears to have a large radial crack on the reverse. Is that just the lighting? I notice something similar on the other VAM listed on the page but It is interesting. It also appears to have been struck through heavy grease on the obverse. Very Nice Coin!

$60 sounds about right. You notice how all of the stars on the obverse look squished? That is because of the grease between the obv die and the coin itself. It caused them to be very weakly struck. IS there an extra Die Break on the obv viewer left stars? On the page it shows the crack disappears about half way down. Yours appears to go into the stars and create a nice sized break. It could also just be a scrape.

In truth, I think $60 is a bit high for this one, but it leaves you room for negotiation.

The more I look, the more I see going on with this coin. I've seen plenty of these, and it's not the first I've found with weak stars. That doesn't argue against 7TF's reasoning, but I almost wonder if they backed the pressure off a bit in the interest of prolonging die life. By the same token, I've seen LDS coins with strong strikes.

There seems to have been a *lot* of grease in the area for this coin. Have a look at the right side of the wreath - the degree of wear noted there is all out of proportion to the rest of the reverse. I expect the bottom leaf sets - adjacent to the bow - to wear quickly, but by the time the sets from AR up counterclockwise start showing wear or strike weakness, the eagle details should be far weaker than they are. So, I'm suspecting some of that grease found its' way into the reverse die as well.

What's more, I see evidence of the dies sinking a bit at the periphery, both obverse and reverse. This is most noticeable at the top of the obverse, and the left of the reverse, in these images. It's part of why I'm musing about the strike pressure.

I've made 1921 Morgans a personal mission.

Keep in mind, though, 1921's were a whole new level of effort for the Mints. They were produced in unprecedented numbers for Dollar-sized coins, dies were pushed to the limit, and all sorts of things which would be really neat features on earlier Morgans are almost "customary" on 1921's. That, and their immense survival rate by comparison to previous issues, means value-added features are far less common for 1921's.

I'm seeing much the same effects in the larger group. Definitely convinced that grease played a role in some of the reverse "wear." The "die sinking" I mentioned (that's only a theory, not proven) is something I've noted, more or less, on all 5 examples of this VAM which have passed under my camera (including a 1B2) but they've varied in strength. The most pronounced of my small sample was the sole EDS I had - very much like yours - and it makes for an odd chain of reasoning.

However, a die which was so poorly annealed as to sink, might also be expected to crack early and often, as this one did.

Definitely a cool VAM. I would say it's AU something based on all the chatter in the fields.