1878 s

[mikev50]

my 1st post--hope i do it right--i have this listed as vam 2.17 but there is no such animal--please help--thank you

M-1878S-V2.17A.JPG (301.61 KiB) Viewed 1202 times

M-1878S-V2.17A..JPG (312.99 KiB) Viewed 1202 times

[messydesk]

The broken 'r' in trust and broken star come from a break on the hubs that produced the dies. Since hubs produce many dies, there are many different varieties that have these features. The thing I look at next on 78-S is the the engraved feathers under the eagle's right (viewer's left) wing. These will help narrow down the variety. VAM 2 doesn't likely exist due to other things found on coins with those attributes. I'm not sure where "2.17" would have come from.

You could start on this page and see if you can find the engraved feathers.

[TheYokel]

Looks like you have a bulgy P in PLURIBUS.

Check to see if your B in PLURIBUS is broken or doubled for me. This shouldn't be hard to Colombo...

Shot in the dark, but if the B is broken, start with 44.

[mikev50]

b is neither broken or doubled--i made a mistake on the vam#--it should be a v2--

[tbconcrete]

Try B2W Reverse. The pictures dont show well But I think the Obverse die chip is a give away for it.

[mikev50]

what is " b2w reverse"--thanks

[tbconcrete]

The Long Knock Reverse is the B1 and the second reverse was the B2 and had a Short Knock on the center arrow. Any letter after B2 would be a specific reverse other than what Leroy considered a plain Jane B2. Others with more knowledge of the subject can answer your question about dies. B2W had a long life and produced many VAMs.

B2w was used for VAMs 35, 93, 19 (A,B) and 74 (A) I believe in that progression ~tbconcrete

[impairedsquirrel]

So Morgan dollar reverses go as follows for VAM listings:
The "A" reverse is the 8 tf
"B/A" is 7/8 tf
"B1" is the 7 tf rev. of 1878 long arrow nocks
"B2" is the 7 tf rev. of 1878 short arrow nocks
and the rev of 79 is listed as "C", with subclasses for little changes (mostly within 1878).
The 1921s have a "D" (1 or 2) reverse.
The "W" Tim referred to is a specific die (actually die class) within the "B2".
So B2W means you have a rev. of 1878 (all 1878-S's have B reverses) with a short arrow nock that was the, uhhh, W-ith (?) B2 reverse that was listed by the creators of the VAM listings.
Not sure if this will help, or how bad I butchered it, but there it is.

[TheYokel]

b is neither broken or doubled--i made a mistake on the vam#--it should be a v2--

http://ec2-13-58-222-16.us-east-2.compu ... k_Location

1878-S can also be narrowed down by the combination of a broken or unbroken "r" and 4th Star.

You have both a broken r and a broken 4th star. Your coin would fall under Guide #5.

Scroll through the listing for which type of r you have, and see if you can find any of the die markers on your coin.

If it has the chip on the neck that was mentioned... You can narrow it down to V35 and V55 based on the B2w reverse and the combination of the die chip, and the broken r and star.