1891-O VAM-6

Description

George Mallis's June 1965 discovery makes VAM-6 one of the earliest attributed varieties in the 1891-O Morgan Dollar catalog, classified III2 1 - C3d (O/O Down) under catalog number 181. The primary diagnostic is a repunched mintmark where the original O punch position is visible as a fine line well below and to the left of the final O — documentation describes a "nicely visible underlying O mint mark remnant south of the final punch." The obverse carries a closed 9 — where the loop of the 9 in the date is fully closed rather than open — providing an independent obverse diagnostic. New Orleans struck 7,954,529 Morgan Dollars in 1891, and the mintmark was added by hand-punching an O-shaped punch into the working reverse die, a process where minor positional errors between punches produced the over-mintmark (O/O) varieties that are a cornerstone of Morgan Dollar collecting. The "Down" directional descriptor indicates the original O was positioned below the final placement, distinguishing this from other O/O varieties where the displacement occurred in different directions. Discovered during the formative period of VAM classification by one of the system's pioneering researchers, VAM-6 has been examined and confirmed by generations of Morgan Dollar specialists over its sixty-plus years of published existence. The DPIS field is left unspecified, indicating either pending measurement or intentional omission where date position data was not relevant to the primary O/O diagnostic.

External References