1891-S VAM-5A

Description

Carrying the sub-variety suffix A within the VAM-5 die marriage family for the 1891-S Morgan dollar, VAM-5A "Far Date" documents an obverse die where the date is positioned noticeably farther from Liberty's bust truncation than the standard placement seen on most 1891-S dies. Cataloged as III2 4 · C3a (Far Date) (190), this variety pairs the Obverse III2 4 with a Reverse C3a that carries its own diagnostic: a short die break on the right side of the upper berry cluster of the left wreath. George T. Morgan's silver dollar design was struck at San Francisco in 1891 with a mintage of approximately 5.60 million pieces — a moderate S-mint output for the late Morgan dollar era. The far date characteristic results from the manual punching of date digits into individual working dies, where the engraver positioned the date punch at a greater distance from Liberty's portrait than the norm for this date-mint combination. The reverse die break on the right side of the upper berry cluster provides a secondary diagnostic independent of the date position — die breaks in the wreath berry areas are common on Morgan dollars because the small, high-relief berry elements create stress concentrations in the die steel. The VAM-5A suffix indicates this is a recognizable die state or sub-variant of the base VAM-5 die marriage, typically distinguished by the progressive development of the reverse die break that was absent or less developed on earlier strikes from the same die pair. DPIS and emission sequence data remain unrecorded. Collectors should verify the far date position by comparison with normal-date 1891-S examples, then examine the upper berry cluster on the left wreath for the short die break.

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