My girl works at a bank and a customer brought in some halves, along with some silver she picked this one out knowing i like wierd pmd coins. What do you think caused this? I have no idea.
It appears that the person was trying to impress some sort of design into the obverse by using what seems may have been a hollow cylinder of metal as a backing on the reverse and hammering the design directly over the cylinder on the obverse. I have an acquaintance who retired from the Philly Mint, and he made the dies to produce something similar. He knew I collect coins, so he gave me a handful of pennies & dimes that look like this. The only difference between the one you have and the ones I have, is that my friend knew what he was doing. Chris
The thing looks nothing like a counter stamp to me. The mason cent deforms the reverse in a concave manner, and causes the obverse to convex along with the design in the stamp. This looks as if a pop rivet gun was tested on the coin with the rivet head snapping off. The coin may even have been held by hand with a toothed pliers or wrench in one hand gripping the coin by the 12 o'clock position (based on those gouged marks) and squeezing the rivet gun with the other hand. It's a shame they used this coin, the obverse looks slightly off center, has a thick area of rim showing on the bottom 6 o'clock position of the obverse.
That looks like a snap button that was soldered onto the coin. I've seen similar things done on other coins (usually with smaller coins like dimes) but never on a half.
i was thinking that it looks like it was drillied out with a hollow drill what you would use to drill a hole in a door for a door knob. Then it looks like the piece was smashed back into the half dollar hole.
Krispy your observation makes the most sense, however I think it's cauliflower ear from too many wrestling matches lol!
