The 78 Acid Treated Funky Feather We All Ignore

[Eschaton]

Things that make u go hmmmmm

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[fogie]

Looks like an 1878-P VAM-30 with PMD.

[Eschaton]

No PMD

[Eschaton]

Raised acid treated appearance

[vamnuke]

[Eschaton]

You guys know that I have over 100 discoveries and revisions and am a professional numismatist, right? I'm guessing this is something abnormal? If that's the case, just say so.

We're in a vacation rental for the summer, so I don't have a scope or anything but I'll try to post better photos.

[Eschaton]

Acid treated area also appears in the left of the upper tail feathers near the leg.

[Eschaton]

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[Eschaton]

Btw, yes, v30 -- well 30A to be precise

[Eschaton]

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[Eschaton]

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[tbconcrete]

Never realized Philadelphia produced any coins in 1878!! Are any of them worth collecting? lmao
The Funky Feathers always refer to the San Fransico Mint. Now I need to reevaluate everything I ever thought I knew about Morgans. I now know that I know Nothing!! Thanks for raining on my parade. I bet that sob who worked at the SF Mint moved to PA.

[messydesk]

Never realized Philadelphia produced any coins in 1878!! Are any of them worth collecting? lmao
The Funky Feathers always refer to the San Fransico Mint. Now I need to reevaluate everything I ever thought I knew about Morgans. I now know that I know Nothing!! Thanks for raining on my parade. I bet that sob who worked at the SF Mint moved to PA.

From, maybe. This was made before SF was making their funky feathers.

[Eschaton]

Should I send this to you guys, John?
Thanks

[vampicker]

I have a 30A sitting on my desk right now. I don't think I'm on board with this being acid treated. There are a few different textures you see on the acid work. I compared the example of VAM 30A to the 78-S VAM 49 and 50 as well as an 82-S VAM 3. On the varieties we now recognize as acid treated, there's consistently some evidence of flow in the affected area. Kind of like the edge of a puddle.
What strikes me is I think that rough area between the wing and body might be a remnant from the leg of the hubbed over design. Look how far out of alignment the extra claws are. They're both the center claws from the undertype. A whole different type of 'funky'.

[Eschaton]

I have a 30A sitting on my desk right now. I don't think I'm on board with this being acid treated. There are a few different textures you see on the acid work. I compared the example of VAM 30A to the 78-S VAM 49 and 50 as well as an 82-S VAM 3. On the varieties we now recognize as acid treated, there's consistently some evidence of flow in the affected area. Kind of like the edge of a puddle.
What strikes me is I think that rough area between the wing and body might be a remnant from the leg of the hubbed over design. Look how far out of alignment the extra claws are. They're both the center claws from the undertype. A whole different type of 'funky'.

Thank you for your reply John! Yeah, whatever it is, it's definitely funky, interesting and mysterious. I don't recall seeing anything like that anywhere else aside from the similarity to the acid treated reverses. Maybe one day @RogerB will surface some sort of correspondence regarding it. I think you might be onto something there John, do you think maybe it was a half hearted effort to remove the previous underlying hub elements? I wonder what would cause those little dots. Is it on the 30 as well? Or just the 30A? John B might be onto something as well if we only see it on the later die states, perhaps some sort of deterioration that brought to the surface previous design elements.

[vampicker]

Yeah, you'd think there had to be some effort to remove some of the underlying design or we'd see a lot more of it. If I recall correctly, the 'pitting' is on the earlier stage too. Whether or not it represents a deliberate act is an open question. It does appear to be oddly localized.

[Eschaton]

Yeah that makes sense. I wondered why it wasn't in the descriptions, so I figured I'd mention it since it seems like a pretty important feature. To me at least, that seems like the key feature for that variety, but obviously that's outta my wheelhouse.

[RogerB]

RE: "Yeah, whatever it is, it's definitely funky, interesting and mysterious. I don't recall seeing anything like that anywhere else aside from the similarity to the acid treated reverses. Maybe one day @RogerB will surface some sort of correspondence regarding it."

Additional San Francisco Mint documents will become available later this year, and members might want to organize a page-by-page search for mentions of any SF die work. I rather suspect there won't be anything - only the Engraving Dept was authorized to make any changes in dies and the SF folks had been caught "improving" some Eagle dies in the earlier 1870s.

[messydesk]

RE: "Yeah, whatever it is, it's definitely funky, interesting and mysterious. I don't recall seeing anything like that anywhere else aside from the similarity to the acid treated reverses. Maybe one day @RogerB will surface some sort of correspondence regarding it."

Additional San Francisco Mint documents will become available later this year, and members might want to organize a page-by-page search for mentions of any SF die work. I rather suspect there won't be anything - only the Engraving Dept was authorized to make any changes in dies and the SF folks had been caught "improving" some Eagle dies in the earlier 1870s.

My recollection was they were reprimanded in 1881 for doing this. They then continued touching up Morgan reverses until 1885.