VAMWorld 2.0

I have also had an issue with Trueviews and it seems like they lag way behind. Right now I have a group that was returned on March 23 pending the images. I am still pending images. Customers are hard to get and retain, easy to lose. I had hoped with new management that things might change, but I bel...

I was cutting PCGS a lot of slack because of COVID, but there has been plenty of time for them to recover their office.

I am now doing pretty good if I can get an order processed in 3 to 4 months.

Anyone have an idea what is going on?

Interesting note because of my last note from Leroy. Leroy concedes that VAM 1 might be mythical and not exist. I assume that his comment was more than the 1881-O series that I inquired about. If we assume (as I do) that VAM 1 is "Exactly as intended by George Morgan" then that coin might not exist ...

Our 2021 taxes are past due?

I think the observation on auction prices is spot on and I have seen some crazy prices out there for high grade recognizable VAMs. I bought an unattributed PCGS MS64+ 1881-O VAM 27 that I just got back from PCGS attributed. PCGS lists this one for about $1,500. PCGS shows that an MS64 sold on eBay i...

Well I would be pretty confident that many people here have a safe, somewhere. I hope no one leaves their coins laying around on a desk or in a drawer regardless of value. For most of us the value in the collection isn't in the bullion value or marketability, it is in the skill to build it. I would ...

Once your collection surpasses the volume of a safe deposit box it seems to me that you are on your own.

My answer is a large safe with a 3 hour fire rating and several guns.

Seems to work so far.

Good question and I will need to be more observant to answer the age question, but if there are a lot of new ones mixed with the old then it can feel like there are many more. I have also had a few N grades but I have shied away from trying to grade Toned coins because of the cost. The coins I am re...

I feel like I am seeing a flood of toned coins coming out of PCGS. In the past toned coins seemed to get a lot of scrutiny and many came back N graded. Now on sites like eBay I am seeing a flood of coins that I think are heat treated or altered in some other way. The TPGs have been somewhat of a fir...

I ran this by Roger and he and I are both scratching our heads. It is a double hit from something and has a crenelated shape, but unless someone can measure it and fit the shape to a coin, it seems unlikely to me that it is bag damage from another coin. This one might need some thought about other M...

For those of us who have never seen this little item, who do you know it is the edge reeding hit?

Welcome back

Well I thought it was an S over something, but the more I look the more I think the upper loop of the S has a lot of pitting. What else?

At least 20 years and probably more like 25

Well I have tried to stretch the life of my laptop and went a little too long. I have spent almost the whole month selecting a new PC and then making the transition from the old to the new. I ran into some issues with Adobe Muse and getting them to let me have a copy of my version, so this is just a...

This is almost like Star Wars figures that trade on a combination of packaging and production

Interesting, you will enjoy my look the 1A this month

My goal here was to try and get a feel for how many are left. I think most over estimate the number. The wild card for me is the unknown melts every time silver prices go up. If my estimate is close then there are only 500,000 or less 1881-O for collectors to see. Break those down by grade and the u...

Thanks, I keep plugging away at it. It is still a process of discovery after many years.

For some reason this triggered a memory of a study I did for myself trying to figure out just how many Morgans are left. This is not scientific, but as close as I could come given available data. In this first chart I assumed that there was a 0.1% loss of Morgans each year since the 1881-O coins wer...