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 Replies: 24 / Views: 3,750 |
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Moderator
 United States
23522 Posts |
Over the last few months I've narrowed my collecting to 1921 Morgan dollar VAM's. I now have more than 30 different examples. It's always been my plan to do a photographic study of them, both macro- and micro-, and publish the images on the Web. Rob Joyce has a pretty good complation on his sites, but it's becoming dated - VAM numbers have changed, and newer details are emerging. Is this content anything of interest for potential inclusion on the site? I have full photographic and post-processing capability, and sufficient obsession to bring the work to fruition.  |
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Forum Dad
United States
24170 Posts |
Absolutely Dave! I am always hungry for information to put on the site. I will give you full credit on each and every page. Bring it on!
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Pillar of the Community
United States
954 Posts |
I'd love to see what you have put together. |
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Moderator
 United States
23522 Posts |
I've just switched to a Monday-Friday schedule at work, but unfortunately the wife still works weekends. That gives me two days in a row (excepting the NASCAR race, of course ) to get a start on things without disrupting my home life. bobby131313, I will put together a couple of sample sets this weekend to show you, so I can get a feel for format and editorial content. Here's a sample of what I'd like to be showing: Becky, I just snagged one that I can't wait to show you. It's got the most prominent reverse clashing I've ever seen. |
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Valued Member
United States
79 Posts |
superdave,sounds as if you are a seasoned numistmatist and bored with the status quo.Thanks for the new ideas and I am looking forward to learning much from your contributions to the Forum.
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Moderator
United States
23522 Posts |
quote:
Originally posted by dgoose50
superdave,sounds as if you are a seasoned numistmatist and bored with the status quo.Thanks for the new ideas and I am looking forward to learning much from your contributions to the Forum.
Thank you for the compliment, dgoose50, but I'm barely a year and a half into my return to coin collecting. I collected as a teenager, but moved on to other things for thirty years. The main reasons for my choice of specialization are a fascination with errors & altered die states, and the ability to collect a whole bunch of these things for cheap. Tomorrow morning I'm going to get serious and see what my Minolta is capable of with optimized conditions. |
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Moderator
United States
23522 Posts |
OK, I started with 1921P Pitted Reverses (editorial comments on the bottom): 1921-P Pitted DiesAs is seen in some other Morgan issues, certain 1921 Philadelphia dies became rusted during their use. Concave pits in the die became raised dots on the minted coin. This problem is almost exclusively limited to reverse dies, as they sat at the bottom and were able to hold moisture as it accumulated. The "king" of the 1921 Pitted Die variations is the Top 100 VAM41, formerly VAM1A:   Extensive pitting is seen below the tailfeathers, around the wreath and leaves, and around the NE in ONE. Almost the entire reverse shows heavy die polishing:  An interesting feature of this VAM is the top arrowhead:  These lines are to be found on at least three other VAM's, as will be noted later. Editorial comments1) I'm unsure what would be the proper size for the pics. The ~265 pixel size of other Morgan pics I found isn't large enough to show many of the varieties. The 500px pics posted here are under 100kb each. 2) I cannot, for the life of me, make Photoshop draw a properly manipulable circular marquee to crop out the black background. The controls simply don't function as the Help says they will. Conversely, using a white background for the initial pics doesn't give me an acceptable solution. The only way I can achieve a decent round edge is to work each individual pixel around the edge of 1700px square original image. That's, um, time-consuming. If you have any tips here, I'm all ears. 3) I have much, much more detail for each coin - die cracks, star/letter doubling and the sort. I need to get a feel for how much of this you want, and in order to do that I guess we have to decide what the goal is for this series. Are we wanting to come up with some sort of definitive representation of each of my coins, from which determinations of die pairings can be made later, or do we want just a guide which will allow the visitor to accurately attribute their coin? 4) I don't want to make any estimates of value or rarity, as that's changing daily. I will say that, in my experience, the Top 100 coin here is the most common Pitted Die variety. Suggestions, comments, concerns? |
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Forum Dad
United States
24170 Posts |
Hey Dave, Did you think I forgot about you? I didn't. Whatdya think? http://www.coincommunity.com/coin_f...n_dollar.asp quote:
I'm unsure what would be the proper size for the pics.
Don't worry about it, do like your doing and I'll fix them to fit the page. quote:
I cannot, for the life of me, make Photoshop draw a properly manipulable circular marquee to crop out the black background. The controls simply don't function as the Help says they will. Conversely, using a white background for the initial pics doesn't give me an acceptable solution. The only way I can achieve a decent round edge is to work each individual pixel around the edge of 1700px square original image. That's, um, time-consuming. If you have any tips here, I'm all ears.
See above answer.  quote:
I have much, much more detail for each coin - die cracks, star/letter doubling and the sort. I need to get a feel for how much of this you want, and in order to do that I guess we have to decide what the goal is for this series. Are we wanting to come up with some sort of definitive representation of each of my coins, from which determinations of die pairings can be made later, or do we want just a guide which will allow the visitor to accurately attribute their coin?
If you want to do all the detailed photos of each coin, that's fine with me. If you want to go that route, I'll give each VAM it's own page and put links to them on the page above. Great job! |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
954 Posts |
I would love to see the key diagnostic pics of the reverse a little more "up close and personal". If there are more key identifiers like doubled stars, etc., I think it would be wonderful to see those also. I think one of the hardest things about attributing VAMs is that when you find something interesting, you tend to quit looking and may miss some of the other diagnostic areas. That would be a great help for attribution. I love what you have here so far and I don't mind the black backgrounds at all. But I believe if you use the eliptical tool and start it at a corner, then drag it to the other corner, it will end up round. It takes practice, lots of it, but it works. Great job!!! |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
980 Posts |
Pretty pics, and a great explanation, SD. Thanks-
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Moderator
United States
23522 Posts |
Most excellent, bobby131313. :) That's the last time I'm wearing a red sweatshirt while ptohographing coins. Becky, the tool can be constrained to a circle, but the start point does not stay in place when I expand it, like the square tool does. Therefore, I can't make it define the diameter of the coin. The only way I can do it is to minutely adjust the size of a fixed-size circle until I hit the diameter right, and then drag it over the coin. Then, the Crop function disappears. I can only crop in a square, not a circle.  Anyways, here's the second coin from Rob Joyce's 1921 Pitted Die page: 1921-P VAM 30, formerly VAM 1DThis variety is characterized by pitting within, and in the field outside, the right wing. Further pitting can be seen below the arrows, and on the pictured coin there is also pitting on a line between the tailfeathers and leaves (not mentioned in any published description). Neither of my two examples show the described left-star tripling, and only the upper middle of the S in PLURIBUS shows doubling visible in a loupe. All other doubling and tripling requires a microscope to identify.    |
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Moderator
United States
23522 Posts |
I thought I found a VAM 1E/F a couple weeks ago, but it was a VAM 15 . So, here's the next one in my collection, a VAM 3B. 1921-P VAM 3BThe 3B dies had a hard life, evidenced by the extensive cracking both obverse and reverse. The reverse is pitted above the D and to the right of the bow. In addition, there is a die chip in the denticles just below the O, which makes this an easy variety to cherrypick with the naked eye. There are two types of this VAM, 3B1 as described above, and 3B2, a clashed-die version with the "n" from "In" (next to the neck) and "t" from "trust" (behind the hair) on the obverse, and the designer's initial "M" on the reverse above the "d" in "God." Although both of my examples show clashing, neither rise to the level of incused letters, which makes specific attribution difficult in this case. Editorial comment: I'm including two sets of pics here, as the darker ones (the way I prefer to shoot them but seemingly not the acceptable standard) show the die cracks better than the lighter shots, which show the pitting better. Your choice.      |
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Rest in Peace
United States
2884 Posts |
SuperDave, great thread and great photo's ! We will all certainly learn a great deal about VAMS from this work. I think you have started something really cool! Thanks, Mike |
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Valued Member
United States
346 Posts |
Loads of information. Its great that you can narrow your collecting down to one year. I do good to stay in one type or country more less year lol. Great job.
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Moderator
United States
23522 Posts |
There's something viscerally pleasing about holding a slab with a pair of Channel-Locks, and hitting the edge with a hammer. That was part of the pleasure I was able to enjoy in the process of presenting this next coin, as I had to crack it out to photograph. Calm down, guys. It was an NTC slab. 1921-P VAM 3EThis variety is known for pitting in the field below the arrow- and tail-feathers, and around the A and R in DOLLAR. My example shows none of the mentioned pitting around the N, but it does have pitting in areas not mentioned in the official description. The field pitting is easily seen in the larger pics, so I won't present a detail of it.   Pitting around the A:  Pitting around the R:  Unlike the official description, this one is pitted in other places. The C in AMERICA:  The denticles next to the right-side reverse star:  The eagle has a beard :  |
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Moderator
United States
23522 Posts |
A little background: I'm obtaining all these coins from online auctions. In order to do that, I look at every single 1921 Morgan at ebay, Yahoo, Teletrade, Superior, Heritage and a couple others. Many times I have to decide whether or not to pull the trigger based on small, out-of-focus or altered photographs. Occasionally I get burnt - of 40 or so coins I've bought in this effort, 4 were not at all what I thought they were, and two others were the VAM I expected but whizzed. The next coin in the series was pictured like this (actual size):  I took the chance that this was a VAM 3F, and I was correct. It also represents the longest I've reached out for a coin - it came from China. I am quite excited about this one - when you see the details, you'll understand why. 1921-P VAM 3F (formerly VAM 3K) VAM 3F is noted for a sizable die gouge in the lower right wing, and pitting in some examples around the lower right wreath and the AR in DOLLAR. This particular example shows pitting in other areas, a unique die gouge below the tail feathers, and significant polishing activity in the upper tail feathers.   The wing gouge is large, but not visible to my (aging) eyes:  Pitting around the first S in STATES:  A die gouge from the tail feathers to the wreath. Note the northeast-southwest line is post-mint damage; the line from northwest-southeast is the die gouge:  The upper tail feathers. What were they thinking when they did this? Note the left side feathers are completely polished away:  Editorial comment: Do you think I should include a detail shot of the "standard" pitting with this one? Edited by SsuperDdave
03/09/2006 5:48 pm
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Replies: 24 / Views: 3,750 |
Posted 03/02/2006 6:55 pm
