May be interesting to read for anyone who collects Morgan dollar VAMs and looks to attribute their collection or looks for the elusive discovery coin.

I have been collecting coins on and off for several years. I wasn't really serious about my collection until I took over where my father left off when he passed away. The hobby became a passion as I looked to build upon what he had already started.

Very soon after taking up his collection, I realized I was interested in other things. Morgan silver dollars caught my attention very quickly, but I grew tired of looking at the same old design over and over again. It was by mistake one day that I noticed something odd on one of my 1885-P Morgans, so I put it aside.

After researching what I saw on the coin for several days, it looked like it could be what was called a VAM. I was excited because I thought "Wow, I have a VAM in my collection!!". It wasn't until later, after much education, that I found out all Morgans are technically VAMs, it's just a matter of which one it is. I sought to identify all of the Morgans in my collection and it inspired a new level of passion for Morgans.

I happened across the site www.vamworld.com and was astonished with how much information was available about VAMs. First things first, I wanted to know what VAM I was looking at with my 1885-P. As someone who knew nothing about VAMs, I could barely decipher the listings and stuck to the VAM IDs that had pictures. I couldn't find a match. I thought "Maybe this is a new one! Maybe I can get what the page calls a discovery!".

It was not to be. After figuring out how to post on the site, I spoke with several very nice and good folks with VAMs. They helped me identify my VAM, which was recently discovered by someone else, as a VAM-1G. It is still the image I use as my avatar on that site as it was the first coin I ever attributed.

OK, so maybe I have other coins in my collection that are yet to be discovered. Like most folks new to this wing of the hobby, I was sure I would find a discovery and be forever placed on that Discovery Hall of Fame for VAMs. Everyday I conversed with folks on that site in an attempt to learn everything about VAMs that I could. It wasn't easy and some of the nuances were difficult for me to retain.

I slowly but surely gathered 6 coins I thought were new Morgan VAM discoveries. I went through the proper channels and submitted them for review. I waited while sitting on my hands for about 10 days to get my package of coins back.

Nothing. Not one discovery or revision of existing VAMs. It was this package that taught me a lot about what I was to be looking for and what I could ignore. I found that not everything that looks interesting on the coin is truly of interest in terms of VAM listings. I was bummed, but determined to find a discovery.

A few months later, I had gathered a new set of 4 coins that I thought were discoveries. I was even more confident than the first time as I had taken what I had learned from the first round and applied it to my second set of hopefuls. I sent the package off and waited for them to return.

No dice. 1 revision and no discoveries. Revisions are nice in the fact that you found something about an already existing VAM not previously listed, but not what I wanted. I want that discovery.

Keep in mind that while I am frantically searching for my discovery with no luck, quite a few people are posting on the site about the discoveries that they are finding. Some are completely new to the hobby and are finding them by virtue of posting to the site for input.

At this point, it had been 6 months of hard work for me and no dice. I was getting really down and out about it, so I had to take a step back and once again evaluate how I was doing this. My tactics had to change.

Several months have passed and I have a new set to go out for review this week. I'm hopeful that I'll get that discovery this time, but I have found that they are just not as easy to find as I had thought. Afterall, VAMs and the search for new ones have been going on for over 40 years.

Here's to not giving up yet and hoping for good new in 7-10 days...