I was looking at photograde from pcgs to see thee pictures of the kennedy halves. I was looking at the MS63 and the MS65 in Particular. To me they look cleaned from scrubbing or whizzing (or are those lines from the dies). What do you think. And if they are cleaned why would PCGS use them as examples? Here is the link: http://www.pcgs.com/photograde/#/Kennedy/Grades
On the MS-63 and the MS-65 the lines are die polish lines. Die polish lines are raised and hairline scratches are incuse on the coin. Notice how the lines are in the fields but do not go across the raised devices (Kennedy's bust, lettering and numerals in the date). This is because the fields are the highest part of the die and the polishing does not reach down into the recesses of the die. So the raised devices (which correlate to the recessed portions of the die) will not have die polish marks. (As with most things, there are occasional exceptions.) Scratches would go across the fields AND the raised devices.
Thanks for the info guys. I was figuring that too. Only reason I was wondering was because some coins have them much more pronounced than on others.
You have to look at the lines themselves to distinguish die polish from cleaning. First, hairlines (i.e. cleaning lines) will be incuse (below the level of the coin), and die polish will be excuse (raised above the level of the coin). Second, die polish lines typically disappear directly into the lettering/devices and reappear on the other side, and cleaning lines typically stop just before and start just after and they also appear on the devices themselves. Remember, die polish line are small gouges made on the die (a reverse image), whereas cleaning lines were made on the coin itself. When you think about when and how they are made, all of the above should be self-evident. While die polish and hairlines do appear similar at first glance, once you've seen a few and study them closely, you should really never confuse the two. Hope this helps...Mike
It is also extremely important to remember that die polish lines will always be parallel and will always run in the same direction. On both of those coins, the 63 and 65, not all of those lines are die polish lines. But most are.
