1885-O VAM-21

Description

Discovered by Brent Fogelberg in March 2005, VAM-21 documents a Far Date with weakly doubled 5 on the 1885 New Orleans Morgan Dollar, classified as III2 16 with the C3a reverse pairing. The obverse die shows the 5 in the date doubled at the very top outside with a slant, though the doubling is notably weaker than the similar feature on VAM-2 — a distinction that helps collectors differentiate between these related varieties when examining specimens. Additionally, the date is positioned further right than the normal placement, giving rise to the "Far Date" component of the attribution. The 1885-O Morgan Dollar is one of the great conditionally scarce dates in the series — while mintage figures from New Orleans are often modest, the discovery of substantial quantities in Treasury vault releases, particularly the General Services Administration (GSA) sales of the 1970s, means that the actual rarity of many New Orleans dates is more complex than raw mintage numbers suggest. New Orleans struck approximately 9.19 million Morgan Dollars in 1885. The dual attribution — far date position plus doubled digit — provides two independent diagnostic features for confirming this die marriage. The Van Allen-Mallis system has documented over twenty varieties for the 1885-O date, reflecting the active research community focused on New Orleans Morgan Dollar die marriages.

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