how common are 1896-P VAM-1's?

aballein

I always see people touting all these crazy doubled this or clashed that Morgans..just how common are the normal Morgans?

Wolf359

99.5% or so are common. Some of the easy or "gateway" vams run into the thousands in known population out of millions of coins made that year.

DennisH

A lot of what you are seeing is people either making the false assumption that VAM = rare, or they are engaging in deceptive hype to try to sell a coin.

Wolf is right, the vast majority of VAMs are neither rare nor valuable, because they fall under the huge heading of "who cares?"

aballein

so are there hard numbers when it comes to VAM's, specific numbers of say your avatar the Donkey Tail Wolf? I have this 1896-P i believe to be a VAM-1, im sure its nothing special but i am curious as to how many are known to be "normal". I never see any threads about normal Morgans, its almost as if people look down on them if they arent clashed or doubled, it could just be me i guess.

messydesk

VAM 1 means "normal dies," and as such isn't of interest to people collecting abnormal dies. It may be that VAM 1 is rare for a couple dates (or doesn't exist in the case of 1880-CC), but since they're normal, die variety folks generally don't give them much attention. If a gorgeous MS66 1896 happens to be a VAM 1, it'll get my attention on its more traditional merits.

Wolf359

<< <i>so are there hard numbers when it comes to VAM's, specific numbers of say your avatar the Donkey Tail Wolf? I have this 1896-P i believe to be a VAM-1, im sure its nothing special but i am curious as to how many are known to be "normal". I never see any threads about normal Morgans, its almost as if people look down on them if they arent clashed or doubled, it could just be me i guess. >>



Leroy says 1896-P VAM-1 is R-2 (Rarity-2)

Symbol Number of Pieces
R-8 Unique or Nearly Unique (Several)
R-7 Extremely Rare (Few Tens)
R-6 Very Rare (Several Hundred)
R-5 Rare (Several Thousands)
R-4 Very Scarce (Tens of Thousands)
R-3 Scarce (Hundreds of Thousands)
R-2 Not so Common (Several Millions)
R-1 Common (Tens of Millions)


The Donkey Tail is estimated at R-6 (Several hundred). While a common 1887 Morgan trades at $20 or so in AU50, a PCGS Holdered Donkey tail gets $750-1000 in AU50. The fact that PCGS has holdered only 40 or so is also a factor...