64 Red. Love the fields, but poor Mr. Lincoln had some acne in his younger days. :smile And what the heck happened to the "O" in ONE on the rev? Don't think that it is a rub / slide as just the "O" is affected. The other letters are nice. That this a pretty penny!
The O in ONE is a typical weak part of Lincoln wheat cents. It's directly opposite the bust which requires the biggest flow of metal into the dies. The shoulder area is also a typically weakly struck area on Lincolns due to incomplete metal flow.
This and http://www.cointalk.com/t212859/ will be ending tonight. Not quite sure what my timing is going to be for the next threads, results or scoring.
Face chatter looks more like planchet flaws than hits to me (which NGS shouldn't count against). Luster booms. Reverse is incredible.
If you're right , I've learned something today , now after a closer look it looks like the chatter is planchet flaws , still I'm hoping for a 66 . lol
A flaw would be something like a lamination or other serious defect. On this coin they are simply planchet marks. Cent planchets are covered with nicks and if the striking pressure and metal flow don't go as designed, the high relief points reveal the planchet marks. The first place this becomes obvious is the shoulder and the O in ONE. After that, the top of the head, the cheek the jaw, the AME in AMERICA. Now, any minute Doug's gonna pop in and say there's "no such thing" as planchet marks. LOLOLOLOLOL
A while back, I stumbled upon this thread while trying to learn how to grade Ike's. The number one thing to learn about Ike's, and I'm still learning, is about planchet flaws. MOST clad Ike's have them to some degree. So while I'm not positive thats what happening here, it's my guess... BUT, second guessing myself, there are no flaws in the fields....just booming luster, so maybe I'm in La La land.
OK. You're the Lincoln master. In Ike world we call them planchet flaws because the planchet was flawed before the minting process. Versus a proof planchet that was polished or simply not tumbled (lol) before minting. But your description makes perfect sense to me and planchet "marks" is a great description. Either way, your explanation coincides with my crazy thought process.
Ok , I can see they aren't hits , maybe Planchet zits is a better word . lol I always thought they'd affect the grade to some degree . Guess we'll see .