1884-P VAM-8C

Description

Discovered in March 2005 by O.C. Smith Jr., VAM-8C documents a Far Date combined with a second clashed obverse die on the 1884 Philadelphia Morgan Dollar, classified as III2 8 with the C3a reverse pairing. The obverse shows a clashed die with a faint curve of partial incuse "n" from "In" on the reverse appearing next to Liberty's head near the neck — evidence that the obverse and reverse dies struck together without a planchet between them, transferring design elements from one die face to the other. The clash impression on VAM-8C is positioned higher than the similar feature on VAM-8B, distinguishing the two sub-varieties through the relative location of the transferred design element. Die clashes occurred when a planchet failed to feed properly into the press, allowing the dies to contact each other directly, and the resulting incuse impressions on each die transferred as raised features to subsequent coins. Philadelphia struck approximately 14.07 million Morgan Dollars in 1884, the seventh year of the series. The "8C" designation indicates this is the third sub-variety under the VAM-8 die marriage, with the progressive letter suffixes tracking successive die states or clash events on the same obverse die. The VAM system's documentation of clash varieties provides valuable insight into the mechanical incidents that occurred during Morgan Dollar production.

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