it looks like the die that struck your coin may have been abraided which is the term used for sanding and polishing. I have about 10 1964 Kennedy halves that have a really unusal looking R in LIBERTY. I think they were also from a abraided die.
Wait now ... if you wear down the field the devices should get closer, right? What was it called when that buffalo lost the connecting part of the leg?
polishing the dies sometimes removes part of a die's design and I think you are asking about the detached leg or the 3 legged bison which was the result of die polishing. a filled letter on a die will also do this but most of the time leaves a grainy appearance.
I can understand grinding off the field, making the devices smear together, but seems you would have to fill up the E to cause this? OR, it is from a die that didn't get the E punched all the way?
the devices don't smear together during a abraiding process, the ones that are affected are totally and smoothly and sometimes roughly removed and this area looks the same as the rest of the coins field .
To remove the device you would have to fill it on the die, otherwise if you wore the field down that far it would be raised up to the device height, right? What am I missing here?
It appears to me that there just wasn't enough metal in the planchet to fill the die. I notice there are flow lines at the rim but they disappear & the coin has the appearance of planchet surface (because there just wasn't enough metal to fill the die).
