1899-O VAM-18

Description

Originally discovered by Martin Field in October 1978, the 1899-O VAM-18 Morgan Dollar is classified as a High O Tilted Right mintmark variety under the Van Allen-Mallis numbering system, carrying the designation III2 1 with a C3f reverse and catalog number 181. The obverse die state III2 1 features open 9s in the date — where the loops of both 9s do not fully close, creating a distinctive diagnostic for die attribution. The reverse C3f designation identifies the specific characteristic that defines this variety: the O mintmark is positioned noticeably higher than the standard placement and tilted significantly to the right, creating a visually striking deviation from the typical mintmark orientation. New Orleans Mint Morgan Dollars are well known for mintmark position anomalies because the O punch was applied individually to each working die by hand, and the New Orleans facility historically exhibited less consistency in mintmark placement than the Philadelphia or San Francisco operations. The 1899-O had a mintage of approximately 12.29 million pieces, and multiple die pairs were employed throughout the production run, each receiving its own hand-punched mintmark. The DPIS rating is recorded with an RE2 designation. VAM-18 represents a collecting opportunity for Morgan Dollar specialists who focus on mintmark varieties as a subset of the broader VAM catalog, and the combination of the open 9s obverse with the dramatically mispositioned O mintmark provides two independent diagnostics for confident attribution.

External References