Several years ago I dipped my toe into Morgan Dollar VAMing and decided I was too old to try to understand the totality of the subject. So instead I decided to do something different and focus onjust one date/mint combination.

The web site for the project is http://www.1881o.com/ and it has now grown into a major effort in a quest to find an example of all known VAMs for just this oneissue. The result has been a number of discovery VAMs and a completion of about 88% of known VAMs for this issue. This is a one person effort but with a lot of help from experts.

I use the Professional Coin Grading Service (PCGS) and the Variety Slabbing Service (VSS) run by John Baumgart as control points to eliminate any problems with grading service bias and VAMattribution, respectively. John is the President of the Society for Silver Dollar Collectors (SSDC).

The site is now up to just over 600 coins cross-referenced by grade, VAM, and die. Every coin has high resolution images to study or compare (almost 6,000 now).

Additionally I get off into a study of a specific VAM or interesting topic each month to further explore history or just things of interest. Plugging VAMing is one of my objectives, and inparticular trying to build in some younger fans.

To visit the 1881-O web site, see:
http://www.1881o.com/