VAM_it

Very, very good Okay Russ, good guess.... Thanks much for your input... I like it.


Dancing fruit are in order:

Uh oh...... It seems that I have bestowed the coveted dancing fruit in haste.... I shall temporarily strip them until our distinguished panel of judges makes a final ruling.

Heh. Can I, Gene?

I'm gonna be honest here. I didn't call this one "diabolical" because I knew immediately what it was - I didn't know until ten minutes ago. I called it "diabolical" because Gene knows darn well how tough it is to attribute 1878-S's unless there's a "smoking gun" indicator.

He also knows that there's a stupid amount of information in the wild about attributing these, enough so that anyone who wants to look hard enough can attribute them all. I didn't start trying to attribute this one until after Russ had made his guess of V46. It was a darn good guess.

It's not a 46, Russ. It's a 46A. Look at the wreath berries nearest the you in UNITED. You'll see the "extra" berry of the die break.

Gene's pics are just_good_enough to get the job done. His second set of detail pics was critical for two things: establishing the location of the date, and indicating the slightly-broken D in DOLLAR. It helps that this VAM is one of those which VAMworld has high-res pics from Heritage linked, allowing all the details to be brought together.

Diabolical.

Okay...Excellent..... dancing fruit for Dave!.....




Humph.....okay............. here ya go Russ...

I knew what it was when I saw it as well, but wasn't going to give it away for those that were trying to do the research. I probably would have went ahead and given it away since twohawks was so close to the correct answer if I had come back on the forum before SuperDave had already answered it. I do think twohawks deserves a pat on the back for the effort he put into finding it was at least a 46 even though he didn't recognize it was a subvariety of it

I don't hunt any more - I now live in a place where only criminals can get guns easily.

But I did, in Vermont, for many years. I was good. I got a nice buck every year, and filled every doe tag my friends would give me. Many people ate well every winter through my efforts.

It's not because I'm a great shot - I'm not. I can make center-of-mass hits every time at certain ranges, and I learned what ranges those were and took only those shots. In the deep woods of Vermont, where most kills of good bucks are made because they're too smart to get caught in the open, I switched to a handgun for ease of carry and maneuverability. The majority of my shots were within 50ft anyways; why carry a rifle?

My vision isn't great; I've worn glasses since I was 18. Most of you probably have more accurate vision than I.

VAMming is another form of hunting. The good VAMmer uses the same skill as the good hunter - perceiving what's different. Catching the movement early enough to be unseen and position for a shot (seeing immediately in that lousy auction pic that the coin is not normal). Being downwind from where you think the prey will be (being on ebay when the irregular auctions end; catching misspellings that get fewer views; hitting the smaller coin shows; patronizing the coin shops of those who do not specialize in Morgans).

Learning the woods first, before you learn about the denizens of those woods.

Learn what VAM-1 looks like, minutely, and you'll never fail an attribution again. The differences will stand out like sore thumbs.

Given the choice, I will always choose metaphor over directness.

Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra.