OK, before I mention what I noticed, here's a short lesson in basic Morgan die production:
The coin's original design devices are created, larger than life, in a wax model. This model includes only Liberty and the eagle - stars, letters, date and mintmarks come later. This wax model was then covered in Plaster of Paris to create a negative cast. The plaster cast was refinished/retouched as necessary, and then a Plaster of Paris positive was made from it. This second plaster casting had the exact look of a finished coin, after it was detailed to fix anything lost in the casting process. It was much easier to achieve the desired look of the coin with a positive cast, just like the coin was supposed to look, rather than a negative casting, which is why this extra step was undertaken.
Then a second negative casting was made from the positive just created. After any necessary sharpening and detailing, this negative was dipped in hot beeswax and then coated with copper powder. A series of electroplating steps were then undertaken, alternating layers of copper and nickel until a thickness of 1/16" was achieved. This model was then detailed and sharpened, backed with lead and separated from the plaster, becoming a metal positive of the coin, called a Galvano Plate.
This final metal model became the template which was used, with a reducing lathe, to create the master hub of the coin. The reducing lathe utilized a metal point to trace the surface, which would have damaged a plaster cast - hence, the effort to produce a hard metal model.
A quick aside - you will hear the terms "hub" and "die" used concerning the minting process. Just remember that all hubs are positives, and all dies are negative - it makes things easier to visualize.
So, the reducing lathe traces the Galvano Plate, in small concentric circles. As the first point traces the Galvano Plate, a second, much stronger point, is carving the same detail at the exact size of the coin into what is called the Master Hub, a cylindrical piece of steel softened by annealing. Now, this isn't an exact science, so the master hub is not intended to be carved in perfect detail. The lathe operator, an extremely skilled machinist, needs to understand perfectly what should be carved into the hub, and what can be detailed into the hub later.
Once created, the master hub (a positive, remember) is detailed to the final look of the desired coin, and then hardened to the greatest extent they were able to at the time. This master hub is then used, in a press, to create a Master Die (remember, a negative), another cylinder of steel, again softened by annealing.
Now you have the Master Die, a perfect negative of the coin. This is where the stars and lettering were added to the coin, each punched in by hand, individually. Although the work was checked very carefully, errors sometimes crept through. Some
Morgan dollar errors involve individual doubled letters or stars, and this step is likely when that error happened.
The Master Die was then hardened and used to make Working Hubs, which were then used to create Working Dies. The Working Die is the actual die which is used in the press to strike coins. Each working hub was capable of creating up to 250 Working Dies, which were then shipped out to the individual mints. If you understand that each Working Die was used to strike as many as 200,000 coins (average of the Philadelphia mint), you can see that a large number of working dies were needed.
It is these Working Dies into which each mint punched the date and mintmark of the individual year they were minting. Thus, you can see how the original design, hubs and dies could be used down through the years of
Morgan dollar mintage.
You will hear the term
VAM bandied about concerning Morgans. This is an acronym for Leroy
Van
Allen and A. George
Mallis, two collectors who originally researched these coins, and published the list of die variants we use to differentiate the various die states and errors of
Morgan dollars. These are called
VAM's, and every
Morgan dollar minted has a
VAM number assigned to it. Although Mr. Mallis has passed away, Leroy Van Allen is still to this day identifying new
Morgan dollar varieties, and is the person to whom you would send a new variant for confirmation.
Two avid collectors by the name of Dr. Michael Fey and Jeff Oxman produced a book called
The Top 100 Morgan dollar Varieties: The VAM Keys which listed the most unusual and popular
VAM's. This has become the standard reference for the most important Morgan
VAM's. Not all Top 100 Morgans are particularly rare, but all of them enjoy greater attention from collectors, and most are worth more than other
VAM's of the same year and mint.
And this brings me to what I found on your 1899-O Morgan. For just a few of their Working Dies, the New Orleans mint used a smaller mintmark punch than normal. The resulting minted coins are referred to as Micro O variants, and I believe yours is one. The 1899-O Micro O Morgans are Top 100
VAM's.
Do you have a magnifier or loupe? You need to get a closer look at the mintmark on your 1899. Go here to help identify the particular
VAM:
http://vamworld.wikispaces.com/1899+Micro+O+GuideThere are 5 different Micro O
VAM's, each Top 100 coins. The condition of your coin keeps it from being of any significant value, Micro O's not being very rare coins, but I thought that as a newcomer to the collecting world you'd enjoy finding something like this in your first batch of coins posted for public approval.
015.jpg
Posted 11/20/2006 7:40 pm
