1897-P VAM-17

Description

Discovered in July 2025 by Andrew Wojtowich, the 1897-P VAM-17 is a recently documented Morgan Dollar classified as 17 III2 16 · C3a (Doubled 9) with die pairing number 189. The obverse (III2 16) has the date in its normal lateral position, with the bottom inside of the lower loop of the 9 slightly doubled — a subtle but diagnostically specific feature that pinpoints the hub displacement to a localized area of the date. Obverse die markers include a short horizontal mark on the neck near the top of the lower hair curl and horizontal lines in the hair curl near the bottom of the jaw along with lines in LIBERTY, while the reverse (C3a) carries a die marker of lines in the wing-neck gap. The Date Position in the Scale (DPIS) is recorded as LH3/RE4, providing a standardized measurement of the date's lateral and vertical position on this specific obverse die. A significant catalog note reveals that the exact same obverse die produced both the 1897-P VAM-12 and the 1897-P VAM-17, meaning these two VAM numbers share an obverse but are paired with different reverse dies — a die lineage connection that helps researchers reconstruct the die usage sequence at the Philadelphia Mint in 1897. The Morgan Dollar was designed by George T. Morgan and struck at the Philadelphia Mint in 1897 in 90% silver at 26.73 grams with a 38.1 mm diameter. The 1897-P had a mintage of approximately 2.8 million pieces, making it a lower-mintage Philadelphia issue. The shared obverse die between VAM-12 and VAM-17 provides an opportunity for collectors to study how the same obverse die was rotated between different reverse dies during the production run.

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