1890-O VAM-16A

Description

Documented in 2012, the 1890-O VAM-16A "High O Shifted Right" Morgan dollar identifies a reverse die with the O mintmark set noticeably higher and shifted to the right of the standard position beneath the eagle's tail feathers, accompanied by several diagonal die scratches positioned below and one above the olive leaves. Cataloged as 16A III2 1 · C3m (High O Shifted Right) with die number 181, this variety pairs a standard Obverse III2 1 with Reverse C3m — a classification that incorporates both the mintmark position variant and the die scratch diagnostics. George T. Morgan's silver dollar was struck at the New Orleans Mint with an approximate mintage of 10.70 million coins in 1890, a solid production year that generated sufficient die pairs to support the extensive VAM documentation this date has received. The high-right O mintmark position and the diagonal die scratches near the olive leaves provide two independent diagnostic categories on a single reverse die: the mintmark position reflects the hand-punching process where the engraver placed the O punch higher and further right than the typical center position, while the diagonal scratches near the olive leaves resulted from die preparation or handling that left incise marks in the die surface. The Reverse C3m classification encapsulates these combined reverse characteristics. The 16A suffix indicates this is a sub-variety of the base VAM-16 die marriage, sharing the fundamental obverse die pairing but distinguished by the shifted mintmark and die scratch combination on this particular reverse die. DPIS entries and emission sequence data remain unlisted, and the 2012 discovery date places this attribution among the more recent additions to the 1890-O VAM catalog, demonstrating continued expansion of documentation for heavily studied dates.

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