1889 Morgans Possible VAM?

David,

I gave it a quick look last evening but couldn't nail it down. You're on the right track by doing a bit of research on your own ... nothing beats having the coin in-hand when trying to attribute it. Sometimes it involves reviewing each VAM listing and eliminating those that don't apply. Sometimes you get lucky and it's a low number ... VAM 1,2,3, etc. Not so lucky with a VAM 50+.

I can see the clashing on the reverse, but don't see clashing on the obverse. Normally, to be listable, clashing must involve a letter transfer (Reverse - 'E' below the eagle's tail or designer initial 'm' above the 'd' in God; Obverse - 'I' 'n' or both at the neck and/or 'S' or 'T' in the hair curl). I don't see any of these markers, so the clashing may not be the best indicator to look for.

In the past two years, the VAMWorld listings have been organized in a user-friendly way. Key indicators for each date and mintmark are lumped together. When you visit the 1889-P page (I can't get to it from my current location) look for any hyper-links in the listings. These normally lump VAMs by key feature ... date location, mint mark position, etc.

Keep us posted on your progress and let us know if you need more assistance.

I also want to add, Every Morgan and Peace dollar are a VAM. It just takes some detective work to figure out which one it is. Varieties are different than errors so each one is a variety because its just a catalog of each die used to strike the coins and each die marriage is a different variety (in Morgans and Peace dollars they are called VAM's). If there is no match with that particular die marriage known or listed then it becomes a new VAM discovery. But each Morgan and Peace dollar will be some sort of VAM even if it has errors on it (like a Cud orsome other form of error). So to your original question of "possible VAM" the answer is always going to be yes when pertaining to these two types of coins