Who wants more Morgans in the "With Varieties" Registry? Which ones?

DennisH

I was part of a 45-minute meeting on this topic at the Long Beach show with David Hall. I came away with the VERY clear impression that the range of possibilities is wide open.

Please share your thoughts, suggestions, concerns, and specific recommendations for coins you would like to see added to the list of "attributed on holder" Morgans at PCGS.

Post your ideas here or e-mail them to me at westdairy2@aol.com and I'll see they get into the right hands.

-- Dennis

PQpeace

NO MORE VARIETY COINS ! NO NO NO !
Did u hear me Dennis )

DennisH

Larry:

You may want to climb to higher ground soon! (Well, maybe not soon... but I REALLY think the tide is going to rise pretty high before we get a lot older.)

PQpeace

How about a 6 month notice that certain coins will be added.
That way the guys that stockpile vams won't be able to hold us up for way more than these coins are worth.
We can find our own coins at reasonable prices
Larry

DennisH

Larry:

That sounds more than reasonable. But what about the handful of VAMs most of us have never seen yet, because of the three or four guys who started in the 1970s and got them all?

davewang202

I have about 70 1879s Reverse of 1878 Morgans.

I have 15 of the 16 known varieties. There's a recently discovered one that has a known population of 4. I don't have that one yet. The guy who discovered it probably paid $10 for it. (ANACS XF45) It sold for $1000. (I didn't buy it)

Observe the depth of my insanity

I am obviously in favor or PCGS attributing/verifying the known varieties. I would certainly send in a couple more coins that would otherwise go to ANACS or NGC.

Then again. I don't fault those dealers that don't want to spend the time to see if the "r" in "trust" is broken or not, and if it is broken, how broken was it. I wrote the book on the 1879s Rev 78 Morgans, but I also know that it is rather esoteric.

I think that PCGS should attribute/verify Morgans that have clear pictorial guides. Top-100, Hot 50, 8 TF, 7/8 TF, etc. This is similar to NGC's policy. NGC does not, nor would PCGS have to attribute all of the VAM's in the VAM encyclopedia. That's just too big of a job IMHO.

DennisH

Dave:

I like your idea about attributing coins that have "clear pictoriall guides", but it prompts me to ask everyone another 3-part question:

Are all of the Top 100 and Hot 50 coins easily identifiable? (i.e. without a 10x loupe and a vivid imagination)
Are all of the Top 100 and Hot 50 coins worth having? (the 1887 Gator Eye comes to mind)
Are all of the Top 100 and Hot 50 coins available in the marketplace to any real extent? (such as the 1878 VAM 44)

davewang202

Frankly speaking, I think of this "registry" thing as being brilliant and evil at the same time. If PCGS recognized a particular variety, the it'll be in the registry right? I can just see the "typical" registry participant being upset because a certain VAM that is "interesting" to a VAM collector is only available in limited numbers, and the finest known specimen is XF40.

Now, as to your questions...

Are all top100 coins and hot-50 coins easily identifiable?

I don't know if all of them are. To answer such a question in the definitive would require that I go back and think about each and every coin and compare them against their "friends" of the same date and mm. I cannot do that right now. All I can say was that the intent of the "top100" and "hot 50" ideas as created by Fey and Oxman was to promote Morgan variety collection, and one of the critieria they used for the selection process was "easy identifiability". i.e. something like "scar face" and "donkey's tail" and "bar wing". Then again, there are 3 1882 O/S varieties, and each one is a top 100 coin of its own. The over mint marks look different, and it does take a bit of work to discern each one. (I sometimes see PCGS designations of "weak", so PCGS itself is aware of such differences) There are exceptionally deceptive coins that almost look like a top-100 coin, but isn't, like some 1900-o O/O overmint marks that look very much like the O/CC mm's. Again, PCGS already distinguishes between the real O/CC and O/O's. I think it can be argued though, whether it is worth the effort to discern the 8 different O/CC VAM's. (VAM 9 is very rare, it is counted as its own Top-100 coin, while the other 7 are lumped together as one)


Are all of the Top 100 and Hot 50 coins worth having? (the 1887 Gator Eye comes to mind)

Catch-22 isn't it? If it's in the registry, then it's worth having, no? I don't know how to answer this question because unless you have some interest in varieties, normally you wouldn't collect varieties. An 1882 O/S wouldn't have any more appeal than an 1882 O to someone who doesn't care about varieties. Or would it? Where are the boundaries? Why would the second reverse of 1879-s be counted differently from the third reverse of 1879-s? So it just depends on the collector (ordinarily). But because of the registry thing, the recognize/not recognize thing becomes more important than the "collector's personal interest" thing.

Are all of the Top 100 and Hot 50 coins available in the marketplace to any real extent? (such as the 1878 VAM 44)

I would recommend that you contact Mike Fey, he publishes a quarterly price guide and population trend for top-100 coins. He can tell you roughly how many top-100 coins there are with a VAM-by-VAM breakdown.

I keep the same population report for the 1879-s Rev 78 Morgans, but that's much more limited.

The really rare VAM's, there are only 4~10 of each known, and most of the known population of the top-100 coins are in the hundreds.

FWIW, there's a registry of "top100" VAMs on Jeff Oxman's SSDC web site.

http://www.vamlink.com/Registry_Top100.htm

HTH

David

p.s. it may be helpful if you include one or more serious VAM collectors in your panel discussion. Someone who can readily give you the answers you need.

coinkat

Perhaps a separate Registry for Morgan VAMS would be appropriate, however, the big problem is getting a consensus as to what should be included. It has to be something that is realistic... What is significant may not be as significant to another. The other problem is some of these VAMS are truly rare and MS examples do not exist. The 1880 VAM23 is tough so are the micro o dates of 1896, 1900 and 1902. How many truly attractive examples of these coins exist?
Not many...

davewang202

I guess PCGS keep separate registries with varieties and without varieties, at least for the "easy to attibute" series.

One problem is that a "dumpter diving" VAM collector will take a harshly cleaned, beaten up and warped coin, if that coin is a rare VAM available at a low price... But that coin and many like it won't make it into a PCGS slab, so not just "attractive", but "problem free" as well. Still, the rarity/availability of a coin shouldn't be a obstacle/hinderance of for listing a variety. Personally, I don't care that if a coin isn't yet known in UNC or nice AU. I think that the main criteria for doing a variety is whether it's "interesting" or not. If it's interesting, and there's only 3 known. So be it. If there's 30000 UNC's, so be it. If it's not an "interesting variety", but there's only 3 of them, then leave that to the die hard variety collectors.

Personally, I think that the Hot-50 and Top100 VAM's are easy to do with the reference books. Especailly the Hot 50's. Bill Fivaz's photos are simply exceptional. I would recommend for Fey and Oxman to go back and do a Top-100 book in the same format. Not just the little booklet, but a large format guidebook. Variety verification could be just as simple as flipping to the right page and comparing to the guidebook. I think PCGS graders could charge a few bucks more to flip to the right page and verify the attribution. That shouldn't be hard at all.

As to "interesting". That's a bit more difficult to define. Should all Top 100 and Hot 50's be included. Why, or why not? That could be an interesting debate in an of itself. I'll count myself as a biased party and won't inject my opinions here.

Later.

DennisH

Dave:

Please PM me, or contact me at my e-mail address -- westdairy2@aol.com.

-- Dennis