Some how the mintmark was overstruck with a star, the die configuration differs between the 2 coins. What happened here?
I found this possible explanation http://coins.about.com/od/errorcoinsdievarieties/a/edge_lettering.htm Mis-Aligned Edge Lettering - The edge lettering appears with abnormal spacing compared to normal coins; one or more letters may be too close to their neighbors, or spaces may be longer or shorter than they usually are. The suspected cause is "slippage" of the coin during the ride through the edge lettering groove, perhaps from the machine being slowed down for a second, or stopped and restarted. With an unknown number of specimens, this error appears to be rare.
I believe that the coin made hard contact with another coin and the star was imprinted on your coin. I see this often on the edges of the dollar coins.
It did not make hard contact with another coin. I can tell that there is a huge gap before the date. Which makes it a shifted, or improperly spaced edge lettering error. Sometimes the shift is so big it will cause the stars to bunch up. Rarely does a star overlap a MM. Even rarer does the shift cause major slippage and cause letters or stars to be missing, which would be a partial edge lettering.
Best bet would be PCGS or ANACS. I have used NGC for these in the past, but NGC knows very little about errors on presidentials. Sometimes theyll grade them and sometimes they wont. If you send them more than a few..they wont. I dont use ngc at all anymore because of this. I sent them 2 oels and they got the error attribute. Then I sent them 10 more of the same error..star completely overlapping the MM...and they tried to deny attribution. They did this with my weak edge buchanans too. I had them refund me completely both times. Who wants an error coin in a regular slab with no attribution?
