Tag Archives: VAMs

Melted, Bagged and VAM Morgans

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If you collect Morgan dollars, you will have to memorize all dates and rarities because unlike Wheat cents and other common denominations, low mintage may not be the sole factor of value. You will have to factor these irregularities:

  1. Dates and numbers melted. The 1918 Pittman Act authorized the melting of up to 350 million silver dollars to support American mining interests and to provide silver bullion to Great Britain, facing a monetary crisis during  World War I.
  2. Bags of Morgans released in last century. Millions of Morgans found in U.S. Treasury vaults in the 1960s and sold to the public at face value; dollar sales in the 1970s of leftover silver dollars, many of which bore “CC” mintmarks; and hundreds of thousands of “Redfield” hoards released to the market in 1976.
  3. Condition rarities. The reasons are many, but people neglected to save some uncirculated dates with high or reasonable mintages, meaning any found in low-mint state and above command ultra rarity prices.
  4. Different die varieties (catalogued as VAMs). This is an acronym for Van Allen and Mallis who cataloged varieties of U.S. Morgan and Peace dollars based on die markers distinguishing such features as doubling, die breaks, or clashed dies. If you are unfamiliar with VAMs, see Proxiblog’s “VAMs for Beginners.“

Silver Spot Price

Before we discuss the above Morgans, we should mention that the high price of silver in mid 2025 has increased values of all silver coins, especially silver dollars. At this writing, the spot price for silver is $90. You can expect that to fluctuate in the months and years ahead. (If you read this at a later date, that spot price will take on new meaning.)

So if you’re interested in silver melt value of your Morgan, do not think a cull has $90 of silver in it.

FORMULA FOR SILVER MELT PRICE: Morgans are 90% silver containing 0.7734 troy ounce. Multiply silver price by 0.7734: $69.60. Dealers usually pay 10% under melt. So that Morgan now is worth $62.

But there is another wrinkle. With the high price of silver, how many Morgan dollars are being melted?

Now the law gets murky. You can melt silver coins for personal use, such as making jewelry. Melting silver coins for profit is not permitted because you will be fraudulently defacing or destroying currency, which is illegal under U.S. law. (Melting cents and nickels is illegal because their metal content can exceed their face value.) But that doesn’t mean people aren’t melting their culls and even valuable silver coins.

To give you an example of what is occurring behind the scenes, silver refineries are not paying the spot price because of skyrocketing financing costs, massive backlogs, and disruptions in the supply chain, making it uneconomical for them to process and refine silver. Refiners are overwhelmed with high-volume scrap, leading to halts in purchases, lower offers, and a growing gap between the physical and “paper” market price. This has created a “liquidity crisis” and a “physical freeze” in the market. 

Now back to numismatics.

Melted Morgans

A handy resource about melted Morgans is Q. David Bowers’ “A Guide Book of Morgan Silver Dollars.” This comprehensive guide provides detailed information on the history, grading, and collecting of these coins. It covers every date and mintmark from 1878 to 1921 and includes melting estimates for each.  

You will have to read this work or consult other guides, such as PCGS CoinFacts, which provides survival estimates for each year and mintmark (presumably factoring in the number melted).

Common date Morgans produced before 1904 were affected by the Pittman Act, while key-date coins were largely spared; however, in doing this, the Mint made those common date coins more valuable, because so many were melted.

That’s why you cannot look only on mintages for value. You will have to memorize. This article will help in that endeavor.

Bagged Morgans

Bags of Morgans released to the public drastically changed the values of Carson City dollars and other dates previously considered condition rarities, with the most famous being the 1903-O. Before the 1970s, collectors rarely saw one and considered it an ultra rarity. The exact number of 1903-O Morgan dollars released in bags in the 1960s is unknown, but it was in the hundreds of thousands, possibly over a million. Same goes for Carson City GSA dollars. Rarely were these seen in high mint state; and then, more than 3 million uncirculated ones were sold to the public. So uncirculated Morgans flooded the market, again affecting value.

In other words, you may have a rarity only to learn another hoard has been found or released to the public. Then your rarity is not so much anymore.

Condition Rarities

Top condition rarities include these dates below with images and values from PCGS CoinFacts:

1884-S. Mintage: 3,200,000. People just spent them, so there are precious few in mint state. Value: XF40, $135; MS65: $295,000.

1886-O. Mintage: 10,710,000. Most coins were melted under the Pittman Act. Value: XF40, $100; MS65, $285,000.

1892-S. Mintage: 1,200,000. For some reason, as in the 1884-S, people did not save uncirculated examples and spent them. Value: XF40, $600; MS65, $285,000.

1893-O: mintage, 300,000; 1895-O: mintage, 450,000; and 1895-S, mintage, 400,000. Although they had low mintages, again, people spent them with most surviving coins being circulated. 1893-O: Value: XF40 $950; MS65, $180,000. 1895-O: XF40, $900; MS65 $325,000. 1895-S: XF40, $1,900; MS65, $22,500.

1896-O. Mintage: 4,900,000. Many of these coins were melted so that high-grade pieces are scarce. Value: XF40, $85; MS65, $200,000.

1901-P. Mintage: 6,962,000. A relatively small number of these coins entered circulation, and the majority are thought to have been melted. Higher-grade examples are difficult to find. Value: XF40, $250; MS65, $325,000.

VAM Morgans

These are some of the most desired Morgan VAMs with images and markers from PCGS CoinFacts.

1887-P “Alligator Eyes,” VAM12A.

1888-O “Scarface,” VAM 1B.

1888-O “Hot Lips,” VAM4.

1891-CC “Spitting Eagle,” VAM3

1901-P “Shifted Eagle,” VAM3.

While these have been labeled the most popular, you should know the top 100 VAM Morgans, compliments PCGS.

This article has discussed the factors that make some Morgans more valuable than others. If you continue to study each date and mintmark in the series, in time, you will be able to make prudent purchases and, on occasion, score big.

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You can find more information about errors and varieties as well as buying and bidding on coins in Coin News Updated: The Essential Guide to Online Bidding. Please consider purchasing the work for yourself or a friend, as it underwrites this hobbyist website. Thank you.

Beginner’s Guide to VAMs

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Morgan and Peace Dollars are among the most popular and widely collected U.S. coins. While many collectors appreciate these coins for their history and beauty, fewer take the time to explore the fascinating varieties of each series. These varieties, known as VAMs, are named after Leroy Van Allen and A. George Mallis, the researchers who carefully studied and cataloged them by their die marriage.

Learning VAMs can feel like stepping into a whole new dimension of collecting. It’s a field that rewards patience and curiosity, often taking years to master variety attribution. Thankfully, new collectors don’t have to start from scratch! Resources such as the VAMWorld website provide a wealth of information, guides, and images that make this specialized area more approachable.

VAMWorld allows users to “contribute, edit and improve” its listings, continually updated with new discoveries, delisted varieties, renumbered varieties, and other important revisions! It is the most up-to-date listing for Morgan and Peace Dollar varieties. While the site includes a dedicated tab for new collectors, this section is often overlooked. For those just beginning their journey of studying VAMs, I strongly recommend first to read the Definitions and Attribution 101 pages as it will be needed to understand various design changes, date placements, mintmark locations, die clashing and other characteristics of variety attribution and terminology.

At present, VAMs aside, the hobby focuses on errors and varieties with newcomers, in particular, hunting ultra rarities such as 1992/1992-D Close AM or 1982-D Small Date 3.1 grams. Those types of varieties for Morgan and Peace dollars are catalogued in VAMWorld. But we go one step deeper. We not only identify that variety but also the various dies that might have created it and the popularity of those varieties within a variety.

Let’s see how Proxiblog’s Michael Bugeja uses VAMs to show all the various types of 1900-O/CC Morgans. The popularity and value of this Morgan is not only the variety, but the prominence thereof. VAMs 7 through 12 identify the difference in prominence of the overmintmark.

I often stress to newer collectors the importance of learning and understanding the reverse hub types for the Morgan Dollar series. This chart represents all of the reverse hub types used for the series in detail. It mentions only 1878 but is for the entire Morgan series from 1878-1921.

Granted, the above chart might intimidate hobbyists new to VAMs. Let’s simplify everything and show how three different VAM reverses for the 1878 8TF, replete with pickup points:

Developing a strong grasp of these distinctions is invaluable not only for attribution but also for detecting counterfeit pieces, as reverse hub diagnostics can quickly reveal inconsistencies.

In my very first article for Proxiblog, I used VAMs to discover a family of counterfeits that fooled collectors and grading services for decades. I wrote, “The ‘Micro O’ varieties have always been scarce coins to come by, and in 2005, these were deemed counterfeit by PCGS when 3 examples showed repeating circulation marks between the 1896 O VAM-4, 1900 O VAM-5, and 1902 O VAM-3.”

Navigating the VAMWorld website can feel overwhelming for newer collectors, but becomes much easier when utilizing the tools and resources provided. Each date specific page includes a set of guides.

Many collectors focus on the Top 100, Hot 50, and Hit List 40 varieties. These showcase the most popular and valuable varieties, minimizing what is known as “micro-vamming,” or listing insignificant types.

Introducing the Top 100, VAMWorld writes, “Many of these VAMs have entered the mainstream collecting of Morgan dollars; it has become unheard of to claim a complete Morgan dollar collection without including the 1882-O/S, Scarface, Hot Lips, and an 1900-O over CC example among several other varieties.”

Proxiblog emphasizes this with articles on each of those above and more. For instance, click the photo below to go to these VAM varieties that are viewed, simply, as desirable and valuable Morgans:

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You can find more information about types, varieties, errors, grading, bidding and buying in Coin News Updated: The Essential Guide to Online Bidding. Please consider buying or gifting the work for a friend, as it underwrites this hobbyist blog. Thank you.