Denticle Impressions

Actually, the records are pretty good - read Van Allen & Malis' Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Morgan and Peace Dollars and you'll know a lot about how Morgans were produced, too. In fact, one of the original presses used to strike Morgans is still in use in Nevada, and original Morgan dies are still extant. Denticle impressions are confirmed by exact dimensional matches (size, spacing and curvature) with actual denticles. This isn't people sitting around theorizing.

I would have to disagree with that based on the dozen detailed photos of an 1878-S VAM-17A posted at VAMworld.

I'm not sure I follow your question. Morgans are the realm of Leroy Van Allen the same way that Bust Halves are the realm of Al Overton. Numismatics, and varieties especially, are defined by the men who devoted their lives to codifying their area of interest - Newcomb, Sheldon, Cohen, Logan/McCloskey, Browning, Bolender, Reich....um, let's say the list of varieties whose designations aren't linked to one person's name is rather small.

In that sense, then, yes, Morgans are a one-expert specialty. It just so happens that that expert is still living, and still designating varieties. Would you deign to assign a variety of Bust Half if Al Overton were still with us?

Mr. Van Allen is not responsible for much of the research these days - in addition to the thousands of smaller players, like myself and a number of Coin Community members, there's a hard core of maybe a hundred collectors who have the time, intelligence, and disposable income to mount a serious effort to identify new Morgan varieties. They account for probably half of all new Morgan varieties, and some of them will form the core of Morgan attributing in the future.

Remember, not only is Morgan attribution a living, breathing process - new varieties are still being discovered every day - it's also assuredly nowhere near completion. Consider the hundreds of millions of Morgans which were minted. The years I can account for off the top of my head - 1878 thru 1903 - saw over 5,000 individual die sets produced. When you consider that a die can be paired with more than one mate, and individual dies were withdrawn from use for work and then returned, the number of potential die marriages is staggering.




They're quoting facts. It just happens that they are the ones who brought those facts to light - it's still fact.

It's not like I don't know who you are, Bill4100, or why you got booted from VAMworld. The only thing I wonder is why you're "proud" of it. That doesn't mean your questions won't get answered with patience; just be satisfied with the answers because there's nobody here with an agenda to deceive you.

Bill, you can ask anything you want here. Question anything. We run a different type of ship here - our membership is held to a higher level of behavior than most online communities, and we do not tolerate disrespectful behavior, nor argument for argument's sake. We also do not tolerate disinformation; we hold that the willingness to admit ignorance is a virtue, one to be rewarded with the most complete possible answer.

That doesn't mean that I, or anyone else around here, will have all the answers for you, nor even correct answers within the realm of what we considers ourselves "good" at. I expect to be called out if I share information that someone else considers incorrect, and I hold everyone here to the same standard. Within the civil discussion of such differences can be found the factual truth, even if it means that somebody has to do a bunch of legwork to find the real answer.

All that is asked of our membership is that their queries be couched in inoffensive language. Your approach, whether you have that impression or not, tends toward the confrontational and sometimes people tend to react to the language rather than to the substance of the message.

To address your last post specifically:




With regard to denticle impressions, the evidence to their existence has been presented with sufficient scientific certainty for me to consider this fact. Does it mean that every little mark on a Morgan is a denticle impression? No. It does mean that I agree with those varieties which have been deemed "denticle impressions" are, in fact, the result of a severely broken die losing a piece with the result that subsequent strikes might show impressions of the denticles of that piece. It stands to reason that a die will break at the edge first, and remember that the Morgan die was a very "busy" piece, deeply engraved, highly detailed and used to the limit of its' ability. This idea works in two ways - perhaps a piece of the die remained in place to strike the next/next few planchets, or perhaps its' presence prevented the next planchet from seating and clashed the other die, with the resulting planchet feeds showing the same impression. This latter is the more likely possibility to me.

Am I certain? Nope. I wasn't there. The preponderance of the evidence, to me, indicates that this is what happened. This is the case with the "experts" who first proclaimed this to be the proper explanation. They weren't there, either; much of what we consider fact is not certainty but certainty to the level required of prudent scientific method in order to use the term "fact." Perhaps they did not couch their proclamations in the proper language for those less well-versed in the arcane business of Morgan VAMs; we're human, and we don't all speak the same way. It doesn't change what is considered "fact," or not. Even "fact" is subject to change, as evidenced by the "micro-O" counterfeit varieties.




You, personally, arrive here with a background which tends to paint you as one who refuses to listen to reason. Remember, I'm a participating member at VAMworld also, and I saw the drama in real time as it unfolded there. But, this is not VAMworld. We will not ban you because of your behavior, or your perceived behavior, at another forum. This forum was founded because of such an occurrence. Between what I've said here, and our published rules of use, what is expected of you is very clear and as long as you hold to the same rules we hold everyone else to, you are welcome. Denying the truth of generally-accepted fact based on in-depth research is not akin to being a messenger of reality; it's more like strolling in public while wearing a tinfoil hat.




Ask what you wish. Accept facts as they are presented to you; as I said in my last post, there is nobody here with an agenda to deceive, regardless of whether you choose to accept this as such. Should you fail to observe our established rules of discourse, or should you prove yourself to be someone who is only here to argue regardless of the facts presented to you, then yes, I will personally make you go away.

Perhaps time will prove me "ignorant and foolish." You, however, won't be around to see it.