VAMs. Where Is The Hobby Headed?

Assembling a set of Morgan or Peace dollars can be very rewarding. Assembling a VAM set is doubly so. You are putting together very difficult to locate varieties seldom seen and seldom noticed. As a vammer you are on the hunt for them. Moreover,as you learn more about vams you are pitting your wit, mental and visual acuity against dealers who want to make money. Let's be clear on this point, if given half a chance they will try to make money at your expense. Dealers are a tough group but there are ways to minimize your exposure to bad coins and bad deals. I will discuss later tactics to help minimize your exposure to bad coins and bad deals.
The thing you need to look for is many do not care about vams or refuse to take the time to learn about vams. When this occurs, this is a prime hunting ground in your pursuit of hard to locate vams.

There is another group that you can use as a resource and this is the dealer /collector.
Many of these as collectors have plateaued and realizing they can not continue to collect are selling their collection.
Then you have within that grouping a sub group of collector / dealers who are selling only their duplicates or under coins to help finance their hobby and purchase higher priced coins.

My next discussion will be about plateauing.

Like every other aspect of life, the only advice I consider appropriate is, "Make the personal investment of time and effort to meditate. Think about who you are, what you want, and proceed in the direction best for you alone." Explore your motivations. How important is the objective learning process? How important the physical legacy you leave those who will still be here when you go?

The answer will be different for each of us, and there are enough of us so that the overall state of the hobby will not be affected by our individual decisions.

Look in the mirror, and do what is right only for the one you see there.

I met a vammer who once told me VAMs saved his life in the sense that as a collector he had plateaued and had no where to go. Everyone's coin collecting 'needs' are different. This is someone who really enjoys looking for and finding VAMs. In his case, it is not so much having as is the wanting. It is the thrill of hunt that gives him satisfaction. It doesn't mean he doesn't appreciate having, but he enjoys matching his VAM knowledge skill set against other vammers and dealers alike. I very much admire what he has done for he is one of the true collectors willing to spend the really large amounts of money to put together one of the all time great Morgan dollar VAM super sets.

So plateauing is something we all have to deal with, whether it is reduced circumstances from a slow down in the economy, divorce, more pressing needs such as college education for the children, a new car, vacation or any of the other myriad pressing needs or wants we all have.

What I have been impressed with are those that VAM enjoy it so much. In my correspondence with Leroy Van Allen, he wrote that vamming has been a most enjoyable intellectual pursuit that has allowed him to stay fresh in the hobby.
What a wonderful comment!
Staying fresh in any hobby or pursuit is intensely satisfying. So it is with me and VAMs. I feel like a young boy fresh with the wonder of these beautiful, heavy and 'real money' historic artifacts finding them for the first time.

And I would be remiss if I did not tell you about the wonderful friends I made who share this same passion. I could give up vamming, but I could not give up my friends.
My collecting experience was done pretty much in isolation. Discovering VAMs was a real revelation. But in this life's journey I discovered something more satisfying than VAM collecting. It is the friends that I have made who share the same passion! I could never go back to working on my hobby in isolation again. When I say isolation, there were no other people I knew who collected Morgan dollars that I could share with.


My next installment will be things you can do as a beginning vammer (tactics wise) to help prevent you (and your money)from being taken by dealers who are out to maximize their profits at your expense.

A lot of people fit the description. If Leroy Van Allen can stay fresh with this hobby after sixty plus years, who am I to argue otherwise? After all variety is the spice of life.

Let's discuss things you can do to minimize your exposure to keep you from buying bad coins and having bad deals and overall bad experience with VAMs.

(1) Define your collecting goals. Many of you will fail to do this as most work on the axiom of: "if I like it, I will buy it. No one tells me what to do." It is perfectly fine that you do this but in the process of doing this, just remember this: you become every one's legal lawful prey.
(2) learn as much about VAMs before you jump in feet first. Ask yourself what are you trying to collect? So in this aspect, refine your goals. Do you want Top 100, Hot 50, Hit list 40, 1878-P 8 tail feather, 7/8 tail feather, b1 reverse? or other? or all of them? There is a lot to choose from.
(3) Since I am addressing this to the collector, those that are accumulators are welcome to read this as well.
You must learn to grade accurately. In addition to this you must know how to tell if the coin you are wanting to buy has been cleaned, polished, whizzed, artificially enhanced (added or removed mint marks), wiped, artificially toned or counterfeit. If this is not your strength, consider purchasing (upper tier) third party graded coins such as PCGS, ANACS, NGC or ICG. All of the others are not considered top tier and some are nothing more than self slabbing companies. Please note, all of them have their own grading standards, so don't assume they are equal because they are not. Ask any dealer (I encourage you to do this) and most will say they prefer PCGS or NGC coins. This will limit you a bit, but will minimize your exposure to purchasing a bad coin.
Let's define a bad coin, It is a coin that will not grade at a major third party grading company for what ever reason. If this is something you don't care about, you or your heirs will when it is time to sell them. What you think and the dealers thinks they are worth will be two very different and divergent things. I know that is a hard thing to say, but there is always a money component that has to be taken into consideration.
(4) If you are doing vams for investment, you will be disappointed at the end. Many agree that vamming has reached market saturation where there is a period of little to no growth. Age demographics and other factors are playing a major role in this.
(5) Start slowly so you can hone your skills and apply them. Don't be afraid to do self assessment.
(6)If you buy raw coins off of the Internet be aware most raw coins sold are estimated to be problem coins. Some of the big names in the hobby say as high as 70% and some are not exempt from selling them as well. A package of horse manure being sold as hamburgr meat no matter the sales pitch will in the end still smell and taste like horse manure. No one likes those deals. Bad coins and bad deals with little recourse for the buyer have contributed to the slow growth of vamming. Some consider this a rite of passage, I do not.

I will write some more later. I am hopeful of some discussion or comment.

The answer is (my opinion) we are playing with a stacked deck. The game is rigged, unless you enjoy the hobby from a hobbyist point of view, that brings you pleasure in the pursuit.

That's really cool Zee..
Also I think Oz has laid out some very important things here...because there are many ways to be taken as a collector..Most of the time, I am most guilty of buying because it fancies me at that point and time...I collect at random, and have duplicates of things I really don't need..Knowing can't afford a complete set, I haven't thought about completing anything, and perhaps being more focused on what "GOAL"I should have, would keep me on tract....nice but ungradeable coins can be found everywhere..though I have learned to spot most of them there are still those which needs more experience to catch..

As far as my goals, making sure I get solid coins over nice looking junk is a must, there is just too much of it out there, and on the other side there are some really good buys as well. I am the habitual "garage saler" that will never change, that is the fun of it all..