1899-S VAM-10

Description

Discovered by Guy Messing in June 1975, this 1899-S Morgan Dollar features a repunched S mint mark (S/S) where the top serif of the S shows doubling as a vertical line at the top left with a spike visible inside the lower loop. Repunched mint marks occurred when the mint mark punch was applied to the working die more than once, with the second impression landing slightly offset from the first — a common occurrence in the hand-punching era before mint marks were added to master hubs. The narrow, medium mint mark is set slightly high and tilted right, providing additional positioning diagnostics beyond the repunching itself. On the obverse, open 9s in the date serve as secondary die markers — the loops of both 9s remain open rather than closing into complete circles, a feature that helps confirm the specific obverse die in this pairing. The San Francisco Mint struck approximately 2.56 million Morgan Dollars in 1899, a moderate mintage that keeps the date accessible to variety collectors. Messing's 1975 discovery came during the formative years of organized Morgan Dollar variety research, when systematic examination of mint marks was expanding the known census rapidly.

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