1896 Morgan; "In God We T ust" ?

CoinOnTheCob

I thought this was weird, but maybe it’s because I’m not a Morgan guy. I was looking at this 1896 to see if I could get MS-something out of it (poopy pictures, I know.)







Then, I notice that there isn’t an “r” in “Trust.” Is this normal? Is it a die crack?




Here is a closeup.

eyoung429

You could always sell it to me.....




I love coins that are missing features........

CoinOnTheCob

Lol, eyoung. I’m just not that familiar with Morgans. I just got my Redbook, but don’t remember anything about this kind of thing.

eyoung429

I don't recall which one off the top of my head but that is a very major vam for that year. Let me know if you would be interested in selling it.

Thanks!

Earl

Mesquite

From your pictures it appears to me that the "r" was tooled into oblivion. Looks like shaving marks above "r" in the word trust. Can't say for certain, but I suspect a bit of post production creativity.

Wolf359

No, that's real.

Too bad it's not a 21-D coin. In a PCGS MS holder, be worth some major dollars.

DennisH

The missing R is caused by a filled die at the Mint (usually grease and dirt). Very neat!

But to be honest, I don't recall having heard of an 1896 coin with that feature. You may have discovered a new and meaningful VAM!

CoinOnTheCob

I looked this up and couldn’t find anything.

1896 VAM 4 Doubled Stars
1896 VAM 19 8 in Denticles
1896 VAM 20 Bar 6
1896-S VAM 5 S/S

I bought it off of eBay more than a year ago. It came in a half-pound bag of mixed coins and I just started looking at it because, as I said, I don’t have any experience with Morgans. The people I bought this from are good people I have done business with a few times. I feel like a kid when my mystery coins come in the mail. This is one of their photos:


<< From your pictures it appears to me that the "r" was tooled into oblivion >>

Mesquite, I thought the same thing when I first saw it.

<< No, that's real. >>

Wolf, do you know how I can find out more about this?

Thanks, guys.

CoinOnTheCob

That sounds neat, Mr. H. What do you think I should do next? Send it to PCGS?

eyoung429

hell no, you send it to Mr. Allen....let him figure out what's going on with it as he is the one who can/will attribute our coin or declare it non-vam... If it makes it, take the letter and the coin and THEN send it to PCGS.

CoinOnTheCob

Mr. Allen?

Rampage

<< <i>Mr. Allen? >>



He is talking about Leroy Van Allen.

Dennis, Leroy will no longer designate filled dies with VAM IDs. He write that in a brief email to me a while back.

Wolf359

Leroy's been re-considering his position on that after receiving requests from several collectors.

I'd sent it to him. Just include return postage.

CoinOnTheCob

What is my next step here?

Conder101

Filled dies should not be given variety status because they can come and go as the die fills and then the plugging material falls out. Also different dies can have the same filling occur so you can have many dies all creating the same variety, or one die creating many varieties as different letters fill and empty.

Since the field looks smooth where the R should be I would lean towards a filled die, but the motto on the Morgan dollar is also prone to hub breaks where parts of the letters of the motto chip off the hub. I a few cases I think entire letters have chipped away. But the area on the hub where the letter chips off tends to be rough and this roughness shows on the coin as well. The Reverse dies on Shield nickels are also well known for this phenomenum, especially 1868's with the hub of 68. (There was only one master hub for the "hub of 68" and it can be found with from 1 to 6 broken letters. It makes it interesting because you can collect examples to show the steady deterioration of the master hub from perfect to all six letters broken and various stages of the different broken letters.)

VamGuy

PM sent

Wolf359

Filled dies should not be given variety status because they can come and go as the die fills and then the plugging material falls out.

Yes....Leroy agrees with that and you are correct. But they are very popular with Morgan collectors
and sell for exceptional premiums. 7 have been given variety status on 1921-D coins (missing 'o', 'd', 'we', 't', 2 types of 'r's, and 's') and are near impossible to find. Don't forget the TRU_T coin is a Top 100 coin.

Too late I think to change now. The good news is, they are quite rare.

messydesk

I also agree that since filled dies are striking errors rather than die varieties, they probably never should have been cataloged as die varieties, but rather known filled die occurances of specific die varieties. A perfect example of this is the 1921-D VAM 1A2, formerly known as VAM 1A, which has a missing S in 'trust.' This was known for a long time, and was popular enough to become part of the Top 100 in 1996. It carries a large premium over a common 1921-D. Last year, it was discovered that the 1921-D VAM 1AB, first reported only a couple years ago, had the same die markers as the VAM 1A. Leroy deleted the VAM 1AB, called it VAM 1A1, and then changed the VAM 1A to VAM 1A2. The thing is, when the die that struck the VAM 1A2 cleared up, it started striking VAM 1A1 coins again. As far as I'm concerned, the best way to handle this in the future is to catalog known filled die patterns within a specific die pairing, but not to give them equal status as a genuine die variation.

Back in March, I sent Leroy a 1921-D VAM 1W that was missing most obverse lettering and stars due to a filled die, but fortunately not the BU where the diagnostic die break is located. I sent it merely as a really interesting coin I thought he'd enjoy seeing and told him I wasn't looking for a new VAM number for it. He agreed that it was pretty spectacular and then said that he shouldn't be assigning die variety numbers to striking errors.

Bottom line is that a filled die or other striking error is still collectible even if Leroy doesn't call it something special.

CoinOnTheCob

I want to say thank you to everyone who took the time to look at and contribute to this thread. This is a very exciting “find” for me. When I first got it, I appreciated the shape it was in, but set it aside in my safe because I have zero experience with Morgan dollars.

Since it sounds like Mr. Van Allen is really interested in die varieties and not errors, I think I will send it to ANACS for a grade and hope they will include “Strike-Through Error” on the label.

I will let y’all know how it grades,
Dennis

CoinOnTheCob

<< hell no, you send it to Mr. Allen....let him figure out what's going on with it as he is the one who can/will attribute our coin or declare it non-vam >>

Eyoung, you are a funny guy. I missed “our” the first time through.