I guess I'll be joining the VAM club

Prethen

I just picked up the VAM book for $42.49 off of eBay as a BIN. I guess that's sort of a score since the book usually goes on sale for no less than about $63.00 elsewhere.

Thanks to everyone's responses on the VAM's thread that I started yesterday. I'm convinced that I have to at least have this one book.

Any suggestions on how to approach VAMs as a newbie (keeping in mind that I'll need to crack open that 500+ page book soon)?

DennisH

Don't start with the 1878 section of the book. There have literally been three separate books written already in making sense of 1878s (that would be a good title for another one!). That date is so confusing and maddening, I still roll my eyes every time I have to look one up.

SDCollector

Congrats on buying a great book. I re-read it often. It's a classic. The chapters on the design of the Morgan dollar and 19th century coin manufacturing are excellent. Van Allen and Mallis did a masterful job with that book. I just bought the Overton book and it's very good, but it is not nearly as thorough as the Van Allen book. The Sheldon book is next on my list.

I got some great tips from Gilbert on attributing Morgans, who unfortunately doesn't post here much anymore.

A few of my tips:

- My advice is similar to DennisH, don't start with the '78. It's the most difficult and you will get quickly discouraged.
- Use a good 10x loupe. I use a Bausch & Lomb Triplet. I also have 20x B&L that I rarely use...it's very tiny and difficult to handle.
- Start by attributing the rarest date (and therefore lowest mintage) you have in your collection. Start with the VAM numbers that are most common in that date since it's likely that the coin your attributing is a common variety.
- Based on my limited experience, I think most of CC's are the easiest to attribute.
- I actually have more fun attributing Morgans here on the forum then anywhere else. Some of the guys around here take excellent pics and you'll learn as I have from others.

Have fun. I know you'll enjoy the Van Allen book.

Rampage

I agree with the aforementioned: Don't start with the 1878 series. If you do, you may go crazy and dump the VAM thing. My personal opinion is start with the Top 100 coins (which does include some 1878, but they are easily identifiable, IMO).

I really only got into the VAM thing after buying the Top 100 book and going to the coin shop and searching 500 Morgans. The first Top 100 I pulled, I was thrilled. When I pulled the second one, the excitement just kept building up! By the end of the search that days, I pulled out 11 or 12 Top 100s (all in three hours of searching with the Top 100 book by my side)! I thinnk the two favorites Ipulled are the 1889 barwing variety and the 1882 O/S Vam 3 EDS in UNC!

You can buy the Top 100 book on eBay for $19.95 I think.

Good luck on the searching.