VAM Numbering System

yes I too started this way, just learning what vams I had in my few coins..........after time the starting principles have changed to accommodate new Ideas and the MICRO scopes...the system is still evolving.....and perhaps as time goes by, year by year evaluations will straighten out the listings as they are firmly studied...rather than
that now its all over turned in one night.........It would serve no purpose.... as even if the system was re-numbered today with todays findings....Tommarrow we will still find new things......

The part of vamming as you view it "the difference with in a die state" is what got me interested. I wanted to find something "New" that is an honest answer. But under all of that some of the most stunning mistakes ever made in semi modern minting are to become just part of die pair bla bla.? So we are to junk the 1888 O Vam-1b3 Scare Face as it's just part of this working hub.

For me it's not about value, there are many very neat sub types with in the pairing. I understand that they are sub-types as do most. The point that I sometime feel you are missing with in collecting is. That many collectors are looking at what they like, gouges , breaks and clashes and so on. I pay little attention to the list's or the are scale as it is just a SWAG. In the big VAM book it states the scale and that it is based on incomplete info, not many read that part.

Some dealers post the rating to add "value" to the idem they are selling. I do not agree with that, but it is something that dealers do Hype there sale. Do you scrap it? I have no opinion on that as far as VAM's go. When someone Hypes there sale with less then full factual disclosure, they are a salesman. Lets shut down every car dealer as "Who really has the best deal" and then there is Sears, Home Depot -vs- Lows.

I think the point I am tying too make is people that use incomplete info to sell an idem will always fill in the blanks. If you collect do some research. As far as getting the book right, what is right? The only book that I have looked in that was not shaded one way or the other by the author was the dictionary, and now that has it's side too.

This is just a long winded way of stating. We as collectors chose to collect for a reason. As we are all different so are our reasons. Some collect vams and work on cataloging die pairs it's there passion. Some collect die differences such as breaks, clashes and gouges (that's me). We each chose are reasons.

There is no right or wrong in this. As far as how a seller will hype a coin up, remove this and they will just find a different way. Lord knows we all live in a buyer beware society

You know Russ, I am reminded that some of your points are indeed true, (even in my eyes).....Like the Electoral College versus the popular vote, only the views of those who post are considered versus the views of those who lurk.

While at another site around a year ago, I received an insane daily amount of PMs, and over 90% of these came from folks who never posted on the site.....These folks felt comfortable or compelled to voice their opinions to me however, silently, covertly, through PM......They all had an opinion, and I found validity in most of them.....These are folks who either feared public ridicule, or were just of timid personality, or for unknown reasons of their own, just would not engage in forum banter.

They all have feelings, thoughts, and emotions just as strong as yours or mine, and deserve to be counted whether or not they feel comfortable enough to actively participate in the forum.....but they go unheard..... Maybe the posted question or situation did not exactly fit their views, maybe they feared certain individuals, (who knows the rationale).

I wish there was a way to change all of that and we might get a better understanding of what the overall community feels on various subjects rather than just the thoughts and ramblings of loud mouths such as I......maybe anonymous polls on certain topic might be more telling than long winded three or four person threads.

Just sayin':

When the names who are most seen posting in threads like this open the thread, they generally post something. One read equals one post. Like most threads at CCF, though, the number of reads exceeds the number of posts by a factor of greater than ten.

Think about that. The overwhelming majority of people who read these words never post. You're playing to an audience far larger than you know.

With that said, it's not about mining those who just read, for their opinions. They don't want the thread to go in a specific direction; if they did, they'd post. They just want to read the opinions of those they consider knowledgeable on the subject - and in threads like these, the participants tend to be worthy of that adjective.

State your opinion. Tell it like you see it. Put it out there. If someone disagrees, believe that they will state that disagreement. For those of you who are reading this but not posting, feel free to disagree. We're discussing things which are not axiomatic. There's plenty of room for other ideas; in fact, that's what this is all about.




Inarguably elegant (don't belittle your eloquence, zeewool, I don't buy it), but I disagree. The foundation is solid. It gets rickety on the upper floors, and we've built "out" when we should be building "up," but the fundamental change needed is more one of attitude than structure. Yes, a whole lot of numbers need to be changed, but IMO the ultimate proper structure will be easily recognizable to anyone involved in VAMming today.

I draw an analogy to Mukesh Ambani's new home in Mumbai. It looks rather a disorganized mess from the exterior, but one may easily assume that the underlying engineering is quite sound.

The underlying problem, to me, is one of attitude and not structure. The original set of rules, as defined by Van Allen and Malis, still works but does not scale up to the present cacophony of varieties in any coherent sense. The only change required, though, is one of clarification. A set of fundamental rules needs to be promulgated - "This is the circumstance under which an entirely new number gats assigned. This is the circumstance under which a sub-designator happens. This is what you do when you prove a previously-unknown relationship." Publish it. Set it in stone. If Leroy Van Allen himself does this, nobody will be able to question it going forward.

Maybe "the die is the die" is unrealistic. Maybe it should be "the hub is the hub." A really good example is the dizzying variety of 1921 Scribbles varieties. It represents number creep at its' finest, but also is likely the closest we've ever come to defining varieties by die.

Either way, all of the objections to radical revamping of the numbering system (and I do not advocate a ground-up renumbering, but gradual change as new information comes to light) have to do with public acceptance (again, what do the TPG's have to do with it?). However we choose to slice it, the variety is the variety and in the presence of a clear, sensible, functional rules set, everybody can get on the same page and move forward regardless of how different the new reality may be from the old.

The TPG's play a huge part in the minds of their customers, of course, for the reasons you state. But they cannot dictate the course of attribution, when their vested interest is in lack of change. Even the most vocal opponents of change freely admit that there are problems, and even in the current system numbers change all the time.

If the TPG's choose not to change with the times - and I do not argue reasonable compensation for reslabbing a changed attribution which is something collectors already have to put up with under the current system - it's not a united front. Should PCGS and NGC (for instance) choose to be recalcitrant about changing attributions, it's a wonderful chance for ANACS to build some big market share.

In fact, that's how I see it happening.

It's not like there isn't precedent for it - there have been different attributors over time that gave a series new variety numbers. On the other hand, how many different, current, attributions can one Lincoln Cent have? (You want a nightmare? Have a large Lincoln Cent variety collection and try to figure out and keep track of all the numbering systems.) Let's see.. we have Wexler, Copper Coins, Fivaz/Stanton, CONECA, and at least 2 others, all different variety numbers denoting the same variety. How many times have we seen "Former KM# XX.x" in the World Coin catalogs? Changing the VAM numbers may only be a small bump in the road with all the experience we already have juggling all these others.

I just hope the basis for any change is rooted somewhere in fact or logic. Otherwise we might as well keep traveling this same road.