Yesterday's find...$16 at a local pawn shop. Edge-reed rounded but extant. Diameter 37.92 to 38.0 mm; weight 24.5 gm. That works out to 91.7 percent of minted, or a loss of 8.3%! I have never seen so much wear on any modern coin, and wonder about how it occurred. My EDC Morgans are, after ten years, apparently unchanged except to be brighter. Some fool just had to acid-test it so it has a stain, but that's easily remedied. Anyone else have a Morgan or Peace dollar as slick as this?
Upon reflection, it occurs to me that this wear could have come about quite naturally: on the floor (or in the trunk) of an automobile. Think of that rusty surface, common in days of yore when water had ready access to the interior of many vehicles. Those areas became covered in heavy, scaly orange flakes of ferrous oxide...a dark gritty slurry when wet, simply a dusty abrasive granulation during periods of dryness. A coin fallen from a pocket or purse to this surface would slide around as acceleration, cornering and stopping of the vehicle propelled it across this rough surface, which was constantly renewed in abrasive ability by months and years...decades...of wet/dry cycling. When found, the wear on the coin would be very like what is seen here; with the rim having suffered first, then the other features somewhat more slowly eroded as the mass/area equation changed. Anyone have issues with this conjecture?
I have a friend that carries a peace dollar every dayas a pocket piece his is a little better then this one is his second one he retired the first when it was a completely undistinguishable silver slug probably what happened here
Wouldn't the coin then show vastly more wear on what had been its down side? Was someone flipping it at regular intervals?
Well...absent any floor-mats or other hindrances to face-flopping, one can easily imagine on the roads of yesteryear were a jouncy ride. I grew up where paved streets were the norm, but in the back-country (my grandparents lived off the grid in eastern San Diego County) rutted, narrow, winding roads (where Dad sounded the horn regularly at blind corners when we drove to visit) were common...and the ride, even in a '40 Chevy, was far from smooth. Grandpa drove what he called a 'Tin Lizzy', which wasn't much more than a motorized bucket of rust. It weren't a Ford, but that's all I can say with certainty. Grandma wouldn't get in it for fear of losing her life through failure of the mechanical brakes on those treacherous roads. She was adamant; he went in it alone, always. I believe such a platform would have provided ample opportunity for the envisioned coin to be flipped from obverse to reverse...perhaps several times during the ride to town for groceries, kerosene & ammunition, all of which he traded for rabbit pelts and sacks of oak leaf-mold gathered from the creek bed near the spring. Of course, for him the loss of a dollar would have been a significant and painful event...so it would have been pursued, and found. But perhaps for others not so important, and probably soon forgotten...abandoned to ride beneath the seat 'till worn smooth by the constant and abrasive motion. I submit this is a high probable by way of explanation of the unusual wear on this Peace Dollar...but who can know the truth?
