Old discovery coin surprises

[weth]

Sometimes seeing an old discovery coin changes how you perceive a die pair, or gives new insight.

I remember when I was doing my 83P die study, it was already well documented what an 83P VAM 1A was; all ANACS and VSS attributed examples were the same. In the course of dialog with LVA, I sent in some attributed VAM 1A examples to differentiate them from other similar dies. He flatly said "That's not VAM 1A" which was really confusing to me. It was only years later when I bought at auction the 83P VAM 1A discovery coin that it became clear, as it matched what had become VAM 39A. So that's why eventually what was known as 1883P VAM 1A became VAM 49.

Today's "well look at that" is regarding three 1921P discovery coins in ANACS holders that I saw for sale at a reasonable price. Nothing really surprising with the VAM 1i (now listed as 1AE2) or the VAM 3AD (it's closer to a 3AD2), but the VAM 45 discovery coin doesn't really match what is currently documented as VAM 45. Same reverse, but the obverse very clearly has die polishing lines on the face, and very clearly matches what is currently documented as VAM 101.

[fogie]

I am confident the discovery coin found the best home available for it at the current time! Very interesting indeed. VAMon!