These trail like marks are very common on shields. And yes it's md. But there's good news! Yours looks to be 1868 hub llc one of the reverses of 68. And........look at the ball to the left.....you may have a mpd is the flag of the 1 on the top left? Can you get a closer image? My research shows that the mpd for this date would be on the hub llb not llc. Maybe a die chip maybe not. Take a closer look at the 1 and 6 see if there in hand are any signs of rpd from your images I can't enlarge to get the details needed to see any repunches .
One must remember that in the shield nickel series there are more unknown varieties then known. You can always tell the reverse hub by the star placement to the word OF ,or the broken point on the same star.
A certain Mod may agree with you. Nevertheless, this is not damage unless we call anything that happens to a die damage.
According to Spindel the IIc hub wasn't used until 1869; this one looks to be IIa. I don't really trust the "trails" off the 5 and stars, but there's not much surprising about what could happen to this issue. http://www.shieldnickels.net/hubs/reverseHubs.html
Dave according to the CPG there are Obv and rev hub marriages A- lla,A - llb,& A- llc. 4th ed vol. 1 To be honest at 5:45 this morning when posted I had been up for about 30 minutes . And haven't had time to revisit this thread until now. I did post one of my shields showing the same sort of lines or trails .
Well, it's pretty plainly an "A" obverse (you can see the split arrow ends in the OP's pics) and although Spindel lists the A-IIc as only happening in 1869, if CPG disagrees with that then we have a "buttered bread taped to a cat's back" situation and anything is believable. It's disagreements like this which leave me torn between needing previous work to have any basis at all for research, and not believing anything I don't see with my own two eyes.
This coin seems to have generated some confusion. Here's what it is: 1868 obverse A with reverse of '67 (IIa) - the common pairing. The spikes off the reverse stars are not tool marks, and they are not PMD. They are die fatigue spikes. These fatigue spikes occur along the edges of devices on shield nickels. Apparently where the the device meets the field is a weaker point in the die, and you get small splits in the die as a result. Die fatigue spikes are extremely common on shield nickels. The coin shows an MPD (misplaced date) flag of a 1 at the top left of the ball. This variety attributes as S1-4000 (SNV) and MPD-002 (Flynn). MPDs are (at least to me) a very interesting part of shield nickel variety collecting. This coin is quite desirable to a shield nickel variety collector. I own one example of this variety. It's paired with the same reverse, showing the same die fatigue spikes. (Sometimes you find different die pairings on varieties, but not here.)
"Die Fatigue Spikes?" EDIT: I hope no one read the original rant I posted. For now I'll just say I disagree.
I didn't see any original rant from you. What's your problem with die fatigue spikes? They are well known on shield nickels.
When I remembered that you are a very knowledgeable young numismatist, I needed to edit an eight inch long dismantling of your post as I felt some may think I was also attacking you personally. So, let's just say that I believe your terminology and the way the marks occurred is incorrect.
You obviously don't know me at all if your characterization is "young numismatist." Perhaps you have me confused with someone else. In any event, you provided no clarification to back up your assertion that "die fatigue spikes" is in any way inaccurate. It is a well-known phenomenon among shield nickel collectors, and that's what we call it. If you don't like the name, that's fine - that which we call a die fatigue spike by any other name would look just as pointy.
Is that intended to clarify your objections to the term "die fatigue spikes?" If you have alternate theories, please post them. There's still a lot not known about shield nickel production.
You are free to call them anything you wish. Until I do some research on something that I never heard and never even crossed my mind until reading your opinion and consult with a few people, I'll just disagree. When I'm through, you may change my opinion. Fletcher called the "spikes" die gouges. Unfortunately, an earlier reference (1980's?) on Liberty & Shield Nickels that I consulted earlier today (can't remember exact name at the moment but Mrs. Peters was one of the authors) states the marks are from die erosion. This is probably where that idea sprang up. Mint technicians we consulted in the 1970's said they resulted from tooling. I find it very hard to disagree with them; however, if you are correct, I still cannot explain how sharp, well defined, "spikes" are caused by die fatigue. Furthermore, all these "spikes" MUST GO in the direction of the radials to support their theory. So far, I have found similar marks on one proof shield nickel. I am looking for more proofs as these coins should be struck using "fresh dies." Additionally, I know of no other coin type in any metal (except for shield nickels) that display this characteristic. I should think if were die deterioration it would be VERY COMMON (at least on all nickel coins) and not confined to just a few dates in one coin type. Furthermore, die deterioration is a progressive effect. I don't recall ever seeing one of these coins that did not have those marks on those particular dies. In fairness to you, I will say that I never gave these "spikes" any detailed attention as I knew what they were and what caused them. I look forward to you educating me. PS I have several of your articles in my diagnostic files.
We are getting hung up on labels somewhat. I think my use of the word "fatigue" is causing some of that because it appears that you are correlating fatigue with length of service of the die. Also, your use of "deterioration" further confuses the issue. This is not gradual deterioration I'm talking about. Let's just try to talk about the process and forget about a good name for it for the moment. The mint had tremendous difficulty striking shield nickels. Dies were poorly prepared, and the hard and thick planchets caused extra stress on the dies. One of the points at which this extra stress particularly manifests itself is along the edge of devices. A device is a hole in a die. Hard metal planchets being forced into these holes caused stress on the edge of the holes. This stress caused failures in the die along the edge of holes, manifesting as spikes such as we see on the coin in question here. The reason you don't see this commonly on other series is that there is no other series that combines extra thick and hard planchets with poorly prepared dies. Remember that the mint had almost no experience with planchets of the nickel composition (75% copper, 25% nickel). The only previous experience with planchets of this composition was the 3-cent nickel, starting one year earlier than shield nickels. But the 3-cent nickel was a much thinner and smaller planchet, and did not cause the same kind of trouble for the mint. (Couple asides for other readers: 1) The reason for the use of such hard planchets was that Joseph Wharton (of Wharton Business School fame) had lots of friends in Congress, and Wharton owned a nickel mine. 2) The difficulties with shield nickel dies are also manifested in the huge number of varieties (due to hastily prepared dies), and the frequency of die cracks/breaks on shield nickels.) It is quite possible that die spikes similar to the coin in question could happen on fresh dies. Die cracks formed on very early die stages - no reason these spikes could not as well. I don't know what you mean by "spikes most go in the direction of the radials." To clarify further, I don't know what you mean by radials, don't know what direction they would take, and therefore don't understand any connection to these die spikes. I also can't see any reason to call these spikes "tooling." Tooling (at least to me) implies deliberate manipulation of the die by mint workers, and I can't imagine any reason for deliberately introducing spikes. Fletcher calls some die features "die gouges," and I agree with him on those dies where he calls that out (example: 1874 F-05). I don't recall anywhere in Fletcher where he addresses spikes emanating from devices as die gouges (if you have a place, please point me to it - Fletcher is not easy to search for something like that).
