Advice Needed

Bryan, I'm not sure how I missed this topic except that I've been busy with non-coin stuff, but I'll give it a shot if for no other reason than to keep my own skills honed. Even though it's several days since your original post and I'm sure you've revealed both coins' secrets, I'm still maintaining my practice of not looking at the other responses before issuing an opinion.

First, the Prooflike Morgan... It's really difficult to make this determination from an image since a photo doesn't have any depth of field, but given that deep-mirror characteristics go along with PL, I'd guess (and it's a guess more than an evaluation) the VAM-79 might have the prooflike designation since it appears to have the deep mirror qualities. The VAM-79 also appears to be a sharper strike than the -80 given the detail in Liberty's hair, especially above her ear, and in the Eagle's head details.

Grade-wise, the -79 might be MS-64 or -65 while the -80 might be MS-63 or -64. I don't think they'd go lower, but if you're planning to crack them out, that's always a risk. Both PCGS and NGC have bad hair days and they're likely to come back even lower, especially at PCGS which seems to be trying to lower the peaks on its Morgan population reports. In fact, I think I could safely guarantee that PCGS would not send them back any higher than originally graded unless they just had a company party and you were lucky enough to catch them hung over or in good and generous spirits (npi).

That said, I wouldn't submit a Morgan to PCGS under any circumstances these days given my experiences with PCGS over the past year. I don't belong to NGC's Collector's Society, so don't have experience with what they might do, at least in this regard.

The greater risk is cracking them out, resubmitting them, having them come back in the same or lower grade, then repeating the cycle until a favorable grade does come back. That gets expensive.

Fred

Now to see how the rest of the discussion went and what the Morgans really are...