Looks like a really nice struck-through grease cent to me. $10-20 on a good day on ebay. Keep up the hunt!
Really? Not saying you are wrong, you have way more knowledge about this than I do. But to me it looks like it was ground down with a sander or something and it hit the high points leaving the lower parts of the coin intact and dark. I see scratches all over the place that make me think it was put on a grinder of some sort. I know that a grease filled die will fill in parts like words and dates etc...but would it make the rest of the coin like the one in the picture? Just trying to get some more insight.
If the obverse was ground down with a sander or through some other method, I would imagine that there would be damage to the rim as well. Since I am not seeing a damaged rim, my thought is that it is a genuine error. I have been wrong many times before, but I have seen a few "whole coin" greasers, and they look like this.
Your cent is composed of a zinc core plated with a very thin layer of copper. A grinder would easily and quickly expose the zinc core.
That is because it has not been ground. Instead it was struck through grease which means the copper plating remained intact.
That's another fact I completely forgot about. I was only going by the lack of damage to the rim, didn't think about the exposing of the zinc.
Just to add that the high points on a Lincoln are the ear and the hair around the ear. Those would be the first to go if it was ground.
the reason some struck thru grease coins have rough looking surfaces in some areas is because the grease and metal fragments built up on the coin dies makes a rough surface on the dies face.
