Before you say PMD let me explain a few things. There is no edge damage to indicate this was held with pliers or in a vise. All of the lines in this look like flow lines, they are not sharp or have edges. The T in States appears to be upside down and the other spots I have marked are perfectly smooth craters. There is no damage to the obverse. That said, what else could this possibly be? Could this be a final stage of die deterioration before the die was removed. It is a 1987D. Outside of the minting process I cannot think of anything hot enough to have been able to push the metal around like this (soldering iron?). No burn marks either so not a torch.
It probably IS PMD but it's one of the stranger ones I have found and can't figure out. I'm not completely familiar with the entire process of coinage, is there any possibility there was a "hot spot" that might have caused this while it was being made? And don't get me wrong, I'm not one to make a mountain out of a mole hill, it's just curiosity.
That's pretty weird looking...it would get my attention too. Something I notice when I draw a perfect circle around the coin, the area affected extends beyond that circle, which suggests to me it happened after the coin was ejected from the press.
Remember that the pre-quarter Blank is put through the upsetting mill. That makes the Blank into the next stage Planchet. One side of your quarter shows the upsetting but the area in question does not. Even if it was a struck through, planchet flaw or lamination I think you would still see the upset edge. Just the way you see it all around on the Obverse side.
I think it's a bank conspiracy. Liz is always asking what I'm looking for when I pick up boxes. I tried to explain it but had to bring in some errors to show her. "Ah,ha" she goes. Now she's making these things just to throw me for a loop. She's probably got a machine shop at home....LOL
I tried to explain it to my Brazilian bank teller. She thought I was saying Euro when I was telling her error. Lost in translation kind of misunderstanding. We both have bad accents!