1881-S VAM-1E

Description

Attributed to LD Lane (known in the VAM community as ChiefRet), this 1881 San Francisco Morgan Dollar was discovered in June 2019 and is classified III2 1 with a C3a reverse. The defining feature is slight engraved two leaf ends — faint engraved lines at the end of the lower two overpolished wreath leaves above the N in ONE on the reverse. These delicate lines were created during die finishing when Mint personnel polished the wreath area, inadvertently cutting fine lines into the die surface that transferred to every coin struck. On the obverse, two long vertical die polishing lines at the upper hair curl serve as secondary markers. The combination of reverse engraving artifacts and obverse polishing lines provides a dual-surface attribution path. As a VAM-1 sub-variety, the -1E designation indicates the fifth documented state within the base VAM-1 die pair for the 1881-S date. San Francisco struck Morgan Dollars in enormous quantity during 1881, and the multiple sub-varieties cataloged under VAM-1 reflect extended die pair use that developed progressively identifiable characteristics as dies wore and were serviced during production.

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