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What is a “Privately Made” VAM ?

Privately Made VAMs are rare Morgan dollar varieties that were once thought to be genuine, but have since been determined to be counterfeit.

Some of these coins were first publicized as genuine rare varieties more than 50 years ago.
They were collected as such until 2005.

All of the coins in this “family” share similar characteristics.

It appears that they were all produced by the same unknown entity.

Even as vintage circulating counterfeits, they are still considered collectible today.

And as such, their listings in the VAM reference remain.

Some previously-unknown privately-made varieties have been discovered in recent years.

These are also given VAM listings, if they can be shown to be part of the same family.

Only the die-struck counterfeits from this one producer are assigned VAM numbers.

Modern counterfeits (from China and elsewhere) are NOT VAM varieties.