1878-P VAM-188
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Description
1878-P VAM-188 Washed Out L Discovered by Pete Bishal, December 1974; revised October 2012 This coin is a Hit List 40 Morgan VAM. This coin is a Top 30 1878 Variety '''188 II6 - B2c (Washed Out L) (193) ''' '''Obverse II6-''' Die is polished down so that L of LIBERTY is weak and wheat leaf above L is shortened. EDS has some die chips and polishing shadows at LL-R of DOLLAR and CA at AMERICA plus right star that is later mostly polished away. '''Reverse B2c-''' Broken 'r' of 'trust'. '''DPIS – In 1878 dates were part of the master die so there is no variation in position. ;Emission Sequence :Obverse: :Reverse: '''Comments: # Besides the [[1878-P VAM-84 and the [[1878-P VAM-223; the [[1878-P VAM-188 is another 7 tail feather coin with polishing on the L of LIBERTY. It is by far the rarest of the 3. An accurate population count is not available, but very few [[1878-P VAM-188's are believed to exist, the finest being a few NGC graded BU coins;two of these coins were later crossed to PCGS as MS 62 and MS 63. Trades for a premium and is part of the PCGS Registry Set. # Reverse: B2c reverse with broken 'r' of 'trust'. EDS is un-clashed, has some die chips and polishing shadows at LL-R of DOLLAR and CA at AMERICA plus right star that is later mostly polished away. # Obverse: L overpolished as is wheat leaf and hair below it. According to Leroy Van Allen, the obverse die was reused on [[1878-P VAM-223, however some have speculated the obverse is actually the one used on VAM-84. Further study revealed that the obverse was unrelated to the VAM 84. It is instead a later, repolished version of the obverse of VAM 189. There are several matching die scratches in the gaps in the lower hair (a.k.a. the bearclaw) and below the lower part of the cap band that will confirm this. # Another useful marker is that the lower left serif of the 'A' in DOLLAR on the reverse is very weak.