1881 O OVER POLISHED REVERSE

[bhinkle]

I have an 1881 0 PCGSMS62PL, that I had labeled as a vam 16.
After looking at the vam 1J vam page, I think it is a vam 1J. OVER POLISHED REVERSE.
I had posted it a long time ago and John 'messy desk' said he thought it had a 'sunken reverse'.
Here are a lot of pictures.
What do you think?
Enjoy, Bert

[bhinkle]

MORE PICTURES

[bhinkle]

MORE PICTURES
I did my best to show the tiny lines in the wing.

[bhinkle]

ONE MORE PICTURE

[keilg1]

The corrected (VAM-1J) designation makes sense to me based on the reverse. All of my 16s have the scratch line to the left of 'In' (GWT) and lack the lines in the upper right wing area on the eagle - yours lack the former and you see the latter agreeing with this.

The spike in the first 8 and the fine polishing lines through it and to its right, however, matches the 16 as does the crack/sunken area at the RIB... if I see your coin correctly. My 16 in hand also has the same lines in the ear.

What you might check is if you have a die scratch on the righthand side of the loop of the R of LIBERTY as I believe the 16 has this but the 1J doesn't:

1881-OV16_(LIBE)R(TY)scratch_GRed.jpg (117.17 KiB) Viewed 543 times

Looking forward to hearing from others if this is a 1J or a 16 as I'm reading this as mixed.

[morganman]

I had a PCGS vam 16 NAOH 64dmpl, stunner- that total lack of interest, pries sheets valued
around $1100 vithot vam, Super frustrated i sent to Heritage and it brought $1900

How fickle vams are today- I estimate i made several million from the vam craze, due to
prices sky rocketing within my large collection, and now paper losses in the last 8 yrs have exceeded
ant profits by far. No actual losses overall, reather lost oppertunity

I elect to stay with futures trading and simple bullion and let the vam junkies make the Buys as im a
very large Morgan seller at present Good seeing you posting Bert H, God Bless

[bhinkle]

Okay thank you Gary and Scott,
I guess I wasn't paying attention to the vam pages and I took a couple more pictures, of the R, in LIBERTY and the diagonal line to the left of the I, IGWT.
I guess it all boils down, to the position of the O mint mark.
Below is some information, that I saw.
Can anyone tell, by my mint mark picture, which vam I have?
Thank You, Bert

The reverse is similar to 1881-O VAM-1J, but clearly different MM locations.
This has the same obverse die as 1881-O VAM-28 and appears to be a slightly earlier die stage. As the 1881-O VAM-28 is usually found DMPL, it is reasonable to assume that the 1881-O VAM-16 is quite rare.

[bhinkle]

I almost forgot, do any of your 1881 O vam 16 or vam 1J's have this diagonal line running under Liberty's jaw?
Or is that just, from hitting another coin, because the same shorter and parallel line below it?
Thanks again, Bert

[keilg1]

Fantastic questions and additional pictures. The more easy thing to address is the gash in front of Liberty's neck - I'd guess PMD as I've never seen this on any other coin but it is very curious!

The mixture of what I'm now seeing suggests this is back to a VAM-16: the obverse PUPs all point to that obverse, as so the die fatigue (more accurate than polished or buffed reverse terms) and the scratch at the In (God we trust)...

I'd completely cede my opinion to JB, JR or any other more experienced/knowledgeable folks, though.

All I do know is you have one damned fine and interesting coin.

[bhinkle]

Okay thank you Gary.

[keilg1]

Still interested to hear what JB, JR or others say. I love these coins and am interested in learning if my skills are off or on!

[vamsterdam]

I got to see the 1j discovery piece when it was found. It was awesome in hand. I found a v16 in a slab. They are really awesome.