Hi Yall, It's been a while! Found this not long ago. Reverse damage is pretty obvious, even down to the base's of the tree's. Obverse around E in United and behind George's head. Estimated Value???
Most likely. The pictures aren't perfect and judging from the obvious error here the mint would have easily picked this coin up and melted it down. The mint and federal reserve tries very very hard to make sure they make no errors. 9/10 damage like this is after the coin leaves the Mint
I don't think it's from a broken/shattered die. It might be lamination, but it looks more like stains to me.
Sorry about the pics, doing my best with what I have. Not glue or acrylic, damage is to the lower than the feilds, yet high details are remaining. Deep gouge on the east side (3:00 position) has clean flat edges, something was between the die and the planchet before it was struck.
the place about halfway up and behind the tree looks like a struck thru area but I can see glue to the right of the 1859 date so this other place may be glue also. dried glue is very tricky and can fool a lot of us.
Ok please understand, I know what glue/resin/adhesive/clear coating looks like on a coin, there is absolutly nothing on it. Top of tree is shattered in the background, all damage lower than the fields, without any raised edges or scrapes.
Just a curious question - If the die did break, wouldn't the top of the tree look cracked/broken too? It doesn't seem to be.
It actually is. Imagine just the first few mm's of the face of the die shattering, the top of the tree is the lowest part of the die, therefore it didn't go deep enough to effect it. The spaces between the upper limbs of the tree are all much deeper than normal. At this stage, the die had not fully fragmented, but it had to be close to it.