A few 1903-S micro S, a dozen Hot Lips, a couple 88-O oval O's, 78-P VAM 44...

nesvt

Made a visit to a coin show this weekend. Was AMAZED at the amount of attributed VAMs. Maybe I don't get out enough. They seemed to appear at every dealer's table; raw, slabbed with added stickers, slabbed and attributed. Lost count of how many 1888-O Hot Lips I saw (all low circulated grade). Lots of PCGS and NGC Morgans that were attributed after slabbing (stickers on slabs). Also saw many SEGS and ANACS attributed VAMs. One dealer had an 1878-P VAM 44 (looked cleaned). A couple dealers had "Hot 50" and "Top 100" boxes!

I went to sell a couple rolls of circulated 1921 P/D/S Morgans. Had to wait an hour for the crowd to settle down. Tons of folks selling. Saw many folks selling silver bars and rounds to dealers. Also saw a couple guys selling bags of circulated Morgans (one gallon ziploc style).

Had a hard time cherrypicking anything. Picked up a couple of attributed coins that I thought had outdated pricing (but I was wrong); found a couple unattributed uncirculated 1921-P Wide Reeded dollars and a nice 1886-P 1C. Hoping the 86-P 1C is MS64.

Coxe

I guess the dealers are getting smarter about letting $$$ walk out the door on them, at least in the easily attributed, popular, and high premium VAMs. Most of us longer-time VAM collectors still have a reasonable edge on them though. A suggestion would be to do what I have been doing and go with off-list coins and interesting clashed dies, especially ones that have letter transfers of significance and were discovered after Mark's book came out. The "Hit List" is not on a lot of radar screens yet and represent opportunities I believe. This another VAM area I am working too that will explode sooner than later.

eyoung429

I still hit the "bargain buckets" and the carded morgans that are in the boxes by the dozens....I generally don't hit major dealers unless I am browsing and happen to spot one unattributed.

nesvt

I don't get to many shows. Is it the same at the larger shows... attributed VAMs everywhere?

Coxe

<< <i>I don't get to many shows. Is it the same at the larger shows... attributed VAMs everywhere? >>



It really varies from dealer to dealer. More are now than ever before from my observations and secondhand accounts. If PCGS ever puts them in the main pop report pages and adds them to the price guide, I owuld expect that to really ramp up. Also, dealers with primarily silver dollars are doing this a lot. One thing to note is that the ones that are NSDR (National Silver Dollar Roundtable) members have been hit with a number of persuasive articles in the last few journals (VAM folks are well-positioned in the NSDR now) to give them the reason to look at varieties themselves.