Hi Gary, and a belated
to CoinTalk.
The different date simply means yours was minted at a different time than the one in your picture.
That "fancy bit of silver on top" is simply after-mint damage, caused when someone decided to make the coin into jewelry, and chose to make it a pendant by silver soldering a loop directly to the coin, instead of fitting it into a separate bezel containing the loop. Coins have been made into jewelry for centuries, and at least in relatively modern times the use of a bezel is the most common method, but direct solder is not that rare.
I recently paid an expert jeweler a little more than the bullion value of an early Japanese yen to remove such a loop.
Of course, I still have a damaged coin, but it's nowhere near as bad as it was when I bought if for 10% of the catalog value for an unamaged one.
Hybrid Mode
