VAM... Who Cares?

One of the moderators of another site bought a raw (ungraded) 1887-P Morgan dollar for under thirty dollars off of e-bay a few years ago. It graded PCGS MS 61 and was recently upgraded to MS 62. It is a VAM 1A donkey tail. That coin sold last month for over ten thousand dollars.

Zee that parallel tail feather made that coin in mint state 65 worth over eight thousand dollars. There is no telling how many people passed that by without buying it.

Planchet striations are defined as the left over (incuse on the coin) burnishing lines on a planchet after striking.

Many coin purists do not like striations on coins. Third party grading companies are not supposed to distract from the grade because of them.

The difference Zee, is that the 1878-P VAM 23 MS 63DMPL is valued at seventeen hundred dollars.

I had a friend of mine yesterday remind me of the money (value) aspect of these coins. I have always looked at these coins as historic artifacts, something to be valued for their history, artistry and beauty. But there is no escaping their instric value ,(silver)their numismatic value as well as perceived VAM value.


If Gene would be so kind to start another thread, he can post the picture of the 1883-O VAM 52 with concave rims each side. It has planchet striations and under the scope you can see the original tan color of the planchet.

I was told years ago that the planchets were cut from silver sheets which were then cut into strips. Striations were from the butt end of the roll. Striations are not swirly.

Ozland I am cleaning up your posts so you don't have 5 posts back to back and putting then in one response instead of 5

Yes, that makes sense. silver ingots were made 'into' 6" wide sliver strips by the rolling machine, and then were cut into strips about 3" wide (to allow for two parallel rows of planchets to enter the cutting press simultaneously). The strips were then stretched to fairly exact thickness on the draw benches. The carriage jaws on the draw bench precluded the ends of the strips from being drawn between the smoothing dies, and so striations would not be removed from these areas. The ends of the strips were punched into planchets first and weighed. If they weighed out, the rest of the strip was punched out into planchets as well. Striated coins must have been the test pieces from the ends of the silver strips. Two at each end, four striated coins per strip. Yes, that makes sense to me Terry, thanks.

I think that I could imagine the furrows (striations) as being rather relatively deep compared to what may be evidenced in the coin after strike, and possibly these lines may even show in devices?

I don't think Gene is around Terry. He seems to be 'out of town' a lot lately. He would probably be interested in this sort of stuff though. I know I am.

OK, thanks Ozland. I see on the VAM website of a book for about $30. would this be more helpful than their website, or should I just stick with their website and this one as being good enough for me right now. I need photo close ups and dates of VAMs sought after, as now I'm thinking about going through 100's of coins in my collection.

I will have the coin imaged this week and will have someone put it up on the website. It appears (to me) with a 10X loup that the striations are on one side. With the coin being concave, I am not surprised by that. There is an occluded gas bubble on the reverse by the T that I will have imaged as well.
This is a most UNUSUAL coin.

I had three sent to me by a friend and one other in transit with the hope of trying to understand the forensics on how this could have occurred. Leroy Van Allen will see them shortly, but I am not sure we will fully understand all of the dynamics that were in play.
What is not fully recognized by the larger VAM community is that 1883-O VAM 52 doubled ear with concave rims is the only two sided concave coin in the entire Morgan dollar series.