1897-O Help

VAM-6?

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention v6. The mms look close and the date is on but I couldn't match any pups due to wear. I thought my mm was slightly higher but if ypu guys agree we'll go with 6. I think the crud above the mm under a loupe in hand was throwing me because now that I use my pic it clearly more accurately matches 6. Thanks guys.

Dave, how was messy's class? I'm so bummed I had to miss it and didn't get to hang out with you... And any good pickups with the blind vammer power I temporarily imbued upon you?

Messydesk's class was interesting to say the least. It was really cool to meet John Baumgart, John Roberts and Ray Sanchez. I just missed Westcoin by not checking my e-mails until I got home.

I picked up a few 1883-O's along with a couple of circulated Morgans for my Dansco albums and some Lincolns for my last 7106 Dansco. I'll be VAMming them this evening and hopefully posted pictures tomorrow.

Glad you enjoyed the presentation. We enjoyed doing it. The goals were to clear up some of the confusion that surrounds VAM collecting and share our experiences. We may do this again at the summer ANA, with a slightly different panel. If we do, I hope the room isn't so hard to find.

We could have gone on for a while about how this whole thing went down, but I'll tell the story here. Someone who specializes in low-ball Morgan dollars, including VAMs, sent me two coins, one in AG3 and one in FR2 he had labeled as 91-CC VAM 3. The eagle spit was nowhere to be found, having been totally worn off the field. The mint mark orientation, which is extra distinctive on CC coins given the two Cs are punched independently of each other, was a match, and there was also a tiny die scratch in a protected area that seemed to match high grade coins. I wanted to make sure it was a match, so I flipped the AG coin over to get the date position, which was a far date. Turns out there were no far dates listed, but here I had two. The VAM 3 had a nearish date that was clearly different. On September 3, 2013, I contacted JohnR, who was just as puzzled. We started digging through Heritage's archives looking for far dates on circulated coins, finding perhaps a couple -- perhaps 1-2% of what was there. This was clearly a tough variety. The problem was that Leroy would not list a new variety based on a coin in such a low grade. After all, the eagle spit was gone on both of these. On September 6, 2013, I unleashed the power of the internet to find a coin that could be sent to Leroy for a new listing, sending a newsletter to the membership of the SSDC with a quest for a higher grade coin. You can see the thread on VAMWorld that ensued here: http://www.vamworld.com/share/view/63675400.

Sure enough, a couple high-grade coins turned up fairly quickly, and for the first time in decades, people were excited about the spitting eagle, because nobody had ever bothered to look at the obverse before. I received one of the high grade coins, which was sent to Leroy Van Allen along with the AG specimen, and he was likewise tickled. I received the coins back on September 23, 2013 and posted about it here: http://www.vamworld.com/share/view/63981944.

I still have the cleaned AU coin someone gifted me, and there are still no 1891-CC VAM 7 known in GSA holders. It appears that a large number of these entered circulation, given the low-ball population. This was one of the most fun VAM discoveries I've been part of.