Recently bought a tube of 20 Liberty Walking Halves. Really love the design of this coin as well as the American Silver Eagle. The halves are various dated and different wear. At work tonight, have some accurate lab scales so just playing around. 1943 with not a lot of wear came in at 12.5 grams. 1917 pretty slick, came in at 11.5 grams. All the rest fell in between these weights. Just interesting numbers. 20 coins total weight = 244.5 grams or 8.55 ounces. Little tube has a nice heft to it.:smile
And if you weighed an MS example it too would come in at 12.5. That's the thing that fools all too many people, they think that the weight of coin is going to be changed significantly by wear - surprisingly it isn't. Only when the wear reaches an extreme stage, such as you describe as slick, does the weight begin to go down.
The fist to wear is only the highest points of the devices which translates to a small amount of mass. When the devices are worn down the ware then happens over a larger surface area hence more mass is missing.
One thing you have to remember is that silver is not a tremendous hard metal. It's malleable enough that the metal on the coin gets moved around slightly as it circulates. So, when you look at a coin that has seen some circulation...the high points may appear as if they have worn off but in actuality they have simply spread out a little bit and been "mushed" slighty.
..........i'll have to remember this when arguing with a dealer of silver bullion when selling "worn" coins and getting less for the coin 'cause it is more worn.
Actually, technically, that is what happens. Or, should I say, I heard something to that effect, too, and, it makes sense to me. In fact, that's why precious metals are alloyed...to arrest that process, somewhat.
