An oxidative catalytic vanadium(V) system was developed to access to the naturally nonabundant diastereomers of carpanone from the corresponding alkenyl phenol monomer in one pot by tandem oxidation, oxidative coupling, and 4+2 cyclization. This system was applied to synthesize two other analogues of carpanone. Mild oxidizing silver salts were used as the terminal oxidant to minimize background oxidation