1891-P VAM-9B

Description

Doubled ear inside combined with a clashed obverse "n" distinguishes VAM-9B on the 1891 Philadelphia Morgan Dollar, classified III2 9 - C3a with catalog number 190. The obverse displays a partial incuse "n" — transferred from the word "In" on the reverse — positioned next to Liberty's neck, a clash mark that documents direct die-to-die contact during a planchet feed failure. This clashed die state represents an earlier stage than 1891-P VAM-9A, and the attribution notes raise the possibility that a different die may be involved, introducing uncertainty about the die marriage relationship between the two sub-varieties. The doubled ear interior adds hub doubling to the clash evidence, creating a die that carries both manufacturing anomalies and production errors. Philadelphia struck 8,694,206 Morgan Dollars in 1891, the fourteenth year of the series during a period of ongoing debate about silver coinage policy that would culminate in the 1893 repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act. Discovered in 2007, VAM-9B's identification required recognizing both the subtle ear doubling and the clash transfer simultaneously, as either feature alone might have led to a different attribution. The partial incuse "n" clash mark is particularly valuable for die state sequencing because clash marks progressively fade as dies are polished during maintenance, allowing researchers to establish relative chronology among specimens struck from the same obverse die at different points in its service life.

External References