VAM Questions

Many Many books of Morgan and peace VAM's the main one is the encyclopedia and comprehensive catalog of Morgan and Peace dollar varieties, then you have other VAM books for about each popular series of VAM's like 1878,1878 7/8TF,1878 8TF,clashed die varieties,1878-S varieties,1921-D varieties, TOP100 varieties,HOT50 Varieties and so on and so on so there are alot of books with pictures of each known VAM and there is a update page also that shows another thousand or so that has been found since the main VAM book was published. Die cracks are just one thing that can constitute a VAM, doubling or anything else that could possibly happen at the mint also constitutes a VAM variety. Just because a coin has a die crack doesn't automatically make the coin a VAM either.

The complexity of the Morgan design, and the size of the die, made them more than normally prone to cracked dies. It would be a relatively easy thing to complete a date/mint set of Morgans with cracked dies. The popularity of VAM's is partly due to the general popularity of the series, and partly due to the enormous work of Leroy Van Allen and George Mallis. Their Comprehensive Catalog and Encyclopedia of Morgan and Peace Dollars kickstarted the whole thing, and Leroy Van Allen is still attributing new VAM's for the numismatic world today. Another consideration is that, with millions of Morgans still extant, new VAM's are being discovered every day, making for a lottery-type experience among collectors. That is certainly part of the reason for my enthusiasm.

As Bryan mentioned, die cracks are so commonplace among Morgans that the presence of them doesn't necessarily qualify the coin as a specific VAM, excepting in cases where the crack has widened to a break. Your theory of certain weak areas on the die is correct; every year was prone to cracking around the tops of the letters, and broken pieces within the motto are also too common generally to warrant their own VAM designation.