1884-CC VAM-9

Description

George Mallis's November 1974 discovery, VAM-9 documents a Dash Under 8 on the 1884 Carson City Morgan Dollar — one of the earliest VAM attributions in the system, reflecting Mallis's foundational role in establishing the VAM classification methodology. Classified III2 8 - C3a, the obverse shows a dash (short horizontal die line) beneath the second 8 in the date, a feature that likely resulted from die polishing, a shallow die scratch, or remnant tooling from die preparation at the Philadelphia hub facility. The reverse carries designation C3a with a large V-shaped CC mintmark that identifies the Carson City die. Carson City struck 1,136,000 Morgan Dollars in 1884, a modest mintage from the Nevada facility that operated sporadically between 1870 and 1893. A critical attribution note in the comments reveals that VAM-9 appears to be the exact same die pair as 1884-CC VAM-10, flagging this as a duplicated listing — a transparency that preserves catalog integrity by alerting researchers to the redundancy rather than silently removing one entry. The dash under 8 diagnostic should be examined carefully with reference images because similar linear features can be confused with contact marks or scratches acquired after striking. Despite the duplication issue, VAM-9 retains its catalog number as the earlier-attributed entry in Mallis's original 1974 documentation.

External References