1892-S VAM-9

Description

Discovered by C. Logan McKechnie in July 2002, the 1892-S Morgan Dollar VAM-9 displays subtle doubling at the top right of all four date digits — a consistent spread across the entire date that resulted from slight movement during the logotype punch application. The obverse die (III25) is paired with reverse die C3a under catalog number 190, and the doubling appears as thin secondary lines visible at the top right of each numeral in 1892. Date doubling that affects all four digits uniformly, rather than isolated to one or two numbers, indicates the shift occurred during a single impression of the four-digit logotype rather than from multiple punch applications. The 1892-S Morgan Dollar was struck at the San Francisco Mint in the later years of the original Morgan Dollar production run, a period when mintages were declining as political debate over silver coinage intensified. McKechnie's discovery over a century after the coins were struck illustrates how careful die study continues to reveal previously unrecognized varieties in even well-studied dates of the Morgan Dollar series.

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