Where Do I Start For VAMs

VAMworld is the absolutely best place to start. As MountainXBGL hinted, there's no real easy way to do it; you just have to go over each coin with a fine-tooth comb and note any odd features to match against VAM descriptions. The hard part is the ones which present no obvious mint errors, die cracks and the like. Then, you have to begin looking for doubling (far and away the most common "reason" for VAM designation) and date and mint mark placement/orientation.

They're all VAM's. Every Morgan has a VAM number, unless it's a new variety which is not yet assigned. For most, it's just an intellectual exercise.

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Have any of you found that you can find sellers listing common date Morgans on ebay when in fact they are a VAM key?

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I don't believe I've ever bought a Morgan on ebay (and I've bought over 100) that was already attributed. That's no fun.

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Out of those 100 morgans how many turned out to be a "good" VAM? Or did you know they were a VAM when you bought them.

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Depends on how you define "good." I started by wanting to build a collection of 1921 VAM's, and then decided to sell out of them when demand drove the price up and created enough competition for buying that I wasn't scoring as well any more. So, what was "good" to me wasn't as much about the value as the need to fill holes in my collection.

Out of that 100 (probably more like 150, actually), I attributed almost all of them before deciding to buy, and had an educated guess about the others. Maybe 15-20 were scores of such magnitude that I multiplied my investment (more than doubled) when I flipped them. I've only had a few losers, and never more than about $25 on one coin. A couple were in the "pay $25, sell for $500" category. All told, I'm fairly into the black for my ebay career.

Mind you, that takes me hours upon hours of work - in order to buy that 100-150, I looked at thousands of coins a week for almost two years. And for the most part, that was almost all 1921's - it's only the last few months that I've turned my attention to 1878's. There is no way I could get good enough to do this over the entire mintage of Morgans at once.

I'm going to do the "obsessive Ebayer" bit again later this year, for a year or two. It'll be a slightly different approach, but with enough work invested, I'll do OK.

Tell you what I had happen at a coin show this weekend.

Went up to a table where a guy had some bulk Morgans in one tub for $14.50 and some bulk Peace in a tub for $12.50. I sat down and started talking to the guy as I was looking through the coins. He began talking about VAM's and how he had another book that had VAM's in it. As I am looking through the Peace tub, I spotted a clashed die VAM. Set the coin aside...the coin was in bad shape, maybe G+ condition, very dirty. After talking with the guy some more, he began to tell me how he didn't actually look for VAM's and wasn't real familiar with them. I picked up the coin I set aside and handed it to him and said "well, this is a VAM". He looked at the coin and still saw nothing until I pointed him specifically to the identifier. "Oh, yea, I see that". Now, I already have this VAM in my collection and honestly wasn't that interested in the coin, but the conversation went(remember this coin was in a tub marked $12.50@)...."I'll buy that coin, how much do you want?"....."Oh, this coin isn't for sale".

Now, had I been really interested in the coin to begin with, I would not have mentioned the VAM to the guy period...even after purchase, but I found it rather dishonest of the guy to put a coin out for a price, then back it out when a buyer set it aside to buy.

I personally like to look for VAM's in dealer bulk bins....I bought a Morgan 1881-S Vam2(doubled 8) this weekend for $14.50 that probably grades MS-63.