1878-S VAM 60 shared reverse

[RogerB]

Do any VAMS besides 1878-S VAM 60 share the identical reverse die?

At the SF Mint only 2 reverse and 7 obverse dies were usable out of 10 of each received on the 16th.

Thanks!

[vampicker]

VAM 60 does not share its reverse with any other VAM

[78-sLongnock]

The Rev with The 1878 -S Vam 60 was only used once
The reverse only lasted for 1000 copies. ( per mint records)
The Vam 60 is the first use of the B-1 and the J Gus Bert piece is one of the 10 presentation pieces.
The 5 Vam 58’s were minted later in the month of April 1878. I have one of the 5(I believe)Vam 58’s Raw
The Vam 60 OB is shared with Vam 26 and Vam 57. This information was collected via 78-s morgan B-1’s
In hand.
The progression was as follows: Vam 60, Vam 26 EDS, Vam 57 stage 1 & 2, Vam 26 LDS (remarriage),
And Vam 57 Stage 3, 4, and 5. (Remarriage) This info comes from the Morgan’s B-1 in hand.
There were 10 die pair sent from Phl to San Francisco
Thanks to the SF mint director decision to hand the 10 die pair to an “intern” for prep Only 5 OBs and 8 Reverses were used to mint 9/10 (if you include Vam 27A) 1878-S B-1’s.

I gave a speech at the The Vam Thing FUN show in Jan 2019 regarding the history of the B-1 Revs

[DHalladay]

There were No Shared Rev with The 1878 -S Vam 60
The reverse only lasted for 1000 copies.

These are fascinating details!
So it looks like there were only 1000 VAM 60s made?
If so, that would explain why they are so &@*%!! hard to find.

[RogerB]

Thanks all. That is what I understood, but wanted to be sure my info was accurate.

BTW -- There were no "interns" etc. at the SF Mint doing die hardening. Responsibility for poor die life was quickly fixed on Thomas Scott, an old hand at San Francisco who hardened dies, and was considered not up to doing proper heat treatment of the new dollar dies. He was replaced by a newly trained metallurgical engineer from Philadelphia, and fired. (Scott also had a bad attitude and Coiner Cicott wanted to be rid of him.)

[vampicker]

Here's the rundown of shared dies from my booklet and later research.
Only one reverse die was shared in the 'Long Nock' group. The same die was used for VAMs 56 and 58.

There was far more die swapping among the obverses used in this group. Each is an early hub stage of the 'Broken 4th Right Star' working hub. They all appear to have broken over intact 4th stars. It is safe to conclude the individual dies were made early and at the same time, but it doesn't necessarily mean they were all used early in SF production. It seems that they were but I've seen too many odd things pop up with other dates to discount an interrupted (with B2 reverse die) progression. So far that hasn't happened.

Here are the VAMs that share obverse dies
VAMs 26, 57 and 60. Curiously this obverse was used as a parent for the 78-S Rev of 79 counterfeits
VAMs 56 and 62
VAMs 59 and 72, then VAM 1i and 18/18A from early B2 hub stage reverse dies.

[RogerB]

Thanks! Doing a bit of false "attribution" squishing and needed some expert details.