1884-S VAM-18
Error
Description
Ed Pope's December 2022 discovery of the 1884-S VAM-18 Morgan Dollar added a new entry to one of the series' most collectible dates. The defining features include a far date position, re-engraved wreath leaves near the N of ONE and U of UNITED on the reverse, and an S mint mark set slightly low in an upright orientation. The re-engraved leaves represent manual recutting where an engraver deepened or reshaped botanical elements on the die that had become shallow or indistinct. Cataloged with die pair signatures DPIS B34/C5, VAM-18 shares its reverse die with VAM-21, establishing a die-linkage connection where the same re-engraved reverse served two different obverse dies. San Francisco struck only 3,200,000 Morgan Dollars in 1884, a low mintage making all S-mint varieties from this date proportionally scarcer. Pope's discovery nearly 140 years after striking demonstrates the continuing potential for new variety identification even on well-studied key dates where collector scrutiny has been intense for decades.
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