Here's an interesting article about a very nice fellow from the Ocala Coin Club who bought a Morgan dollar at the last club meeting for $22. Turns out the coin is worth more than $30,000.

Ocala Coin Club Find

ahh xD

Cool story, art.

Mark or any VAM-nut, can you post an image of that VAM variety on this thread?

That ones a real easy one to spot. 1889 VAM 23 a That was a great find.

It's easy if you know what the heck to look for. I don't own a single Morgan myself. One day, though...... )

eheh only 1 here wats a vam xD lol?

Wow, mark. I would have noticed that a mile away but my first thought wouldn't have been a clash!

VAM comes from the first letters of the last names of two Morgan dollar researchers Van Allen and Mallis They documented variations in dies used for morgan dollars. They assigned numbers to ID the die sets. (Obverse and reverse dies) Each mint used a certain number of dies each year. Some of them either when they were first made, thru mistakes later on or just differences in mint mark or date placement they are different. Sometimes the dies got used with out a planchet between them. That caused the imprint of the reverse to show up on the obverse. In this case it was a 1889 VAM 23 which had a slanted date. Sometime during minting dollars a worker left the blank out and presto the same die but now a VAM 23A which designates a later die state. Heres a couple examples.

Here is one the die got doubled on when it was first made. Note the doubling on the eye.


This is a polish line. They probably had a problem on this die and polished it out but left this line in the "A".


Edit: BTW this looks like the same thing what happened to Cherrypickers Quarter.

Check here for some of the other morgans I have with some close ups.

On July 24, while attending an Ocala Coin Club meeting, Brown met a gentleman who was selling Morgan Dollars and a collection of Morgan Peace Dollars.

Wow! A rare Morgan Peace dollar!!

Nice of him to share with the seller.

thanks mark

can you say lucky!!! wish i had lucky like that!!!

Lucky guy! Thanks for the link Mark

Thanks for the link too. I don't follow VAMs at all so I'd never have known.

I keep hoping to make a find like that myself. Another thing I'd love to find a new VAM and have the discovery piece. About the best I've done maybe doubles the worth of the morgan. Which isn't bad by itself.

That one is pretty obvious. I can't imagine how the seller missed it.



That was one heck of a Die Clash.

Here's how the two sides line up:

That beats my find last month of a 1908s Ind Head cent for 1.25 Some people have all the luck!