1881 S Morgan Dollar VAM 22 Help

VAM 10 has chips in the tops of both 8s with s/s and says S left, but the mm picture shows the S only slanted left.

VAM 13 has the same die chips top loops. Mine also has chips in the middle left and right side of first 8 between both top and bottom loop.

I'm having difficulty finding all the chips AND the S/S shifted far left, up and slanted right.

I am not familiar with very many 1881-S VAM's but it does look like the first "1" in the date is closer to the denticles than the second "1" which would be explained by the shifted date they description describes for the VAM-22. It does have the chips in both 8's but that is pretty common on Morgans so that is not a defining factor. One thing that doesn't look like the pictures on VW is the MintMark, the one on VW has a flatter S but may still be in the same position. I am just not sure. Do you see the doubled cap on your coin? I can't see anything with the small pictures so this would have to be something you check for in hand or provide bigger pictures to go by. What I do is I look for things I can see on my coin and then I go and see if I can match it up with a VAM already known. For it to be that VAM it should have every attribute that is mentioned for that particular VAM so please look for all the attributes that the VAM-22 mentions and see if your coin has them all, if it only has one of the attributes listed look for another VAM that has that same attribute and in addition to that one has the others your coin has. VAMing is just an investigative work to match the clues up like you would a finger print, if the ridges on a finger print doesn't match up then it can't be that finger that made it, you have to look for the correct finger that matches the print before you can make an arrest.


I did not look at any other VAM for this date/mm but the VAM-22 but as I said I need you to look for those other attributes before we can move forward

I know its hard to try to use someone else's photos to attribute, and I appreciate everyone's help. My frustration level is maxed out. I cannot definatively ID doubling at the cap. Here some more photos if it helps.

I find it easier to inspect the coin looking and noting peculiarities also, then checking VW. I know its a great site with great members, but sometimes the photos and descriptions just are enough.

What kept throwing me off was one VAM would describe and show chips inside the upper loops of the 8s, and not the chips on the left and right between the loops. The mm location and description also did not jive with the description.

If I understand a little about vamming, the eagle's left wing is described as left, and the right wing, right. In the instance of a mm, left is left and right is right, from the viewer's perspective. Sometimes VW doesn't follow this. Or else I'm very mistaken.

I'm venting now, my apologies.






































thanks again for the assist

This is VAMming, southsav. It's an exercise in frustration for the vast majority of VAMs, because there simply isn't enough information available to conclusively attribute them.

Based on what little is out there, your coin looks good for VAM-22.

Or, it may be an entirely different VAM for which the date orientation and mint mark location haven't been recorded, for whatever reason. Or, it could be a completely new VAM, as yet undiscovered.

I'm so frustrated by having to tell people there's no real way to be sure of what VAM they have, that I'm not trying to attribute Morgans very much these days.

....and that's another thing, too.

There's nothing in the "Cardinal Rules of VAMming" which requires that a given VAM be *one specific die pair* and known multi-die VAMs abound. So, southsav could have a "VAM-22" from a different die pair than the specific one used as the plate coin.




When one thinks about the number of multiple strikes which happen upstream of the coin strike itself - master dies, working hubs, working dies - each of which required multiple strikes followed by an inexact process of annealing - I'm quite sure that virtually every_single_coin will demonstrate some sort of doubling, somewhere on the coin.

The science underlying all of this is breathtakingly inexact. As for the process of VAMming itself, it really can't be said that anything close to scientific rigor is being applied; heck, there isn't even a set of formalized rules, rather just word-of-mouth "guidelines.".

....especially in places where the dropoff isn't as steep is in others. The cap doubling noted on southsav's coin is pretty common, and in such a place. On the other hand, one doesn't often see doubling on the reverse motto, for instance, where the dropoff is a radical transition from field to deep device.

Sometimes I think that the words "vammer" and "masochist" are synonyms)....