Was looking through some coins and noticed this 1917 Mercury with some exception details front and back. The surfaces look a little weird to me, but the detail in the hair and torch are exceptional. There is some damage on the obverse rim though. Is this amount of detail typical of older Mercurys? I have a 1938 Mercury graded MS67 that doesn't have near this sharp detail.
Date looks lopsided and the digits out of place. Makes me think "counterfeit" at first glance but hopefully I'm ridiculous and wrong. Not my series, after all...
I am fairly certain the font is wrong on the reverse (looks too thin to me) and the olive leaves look too thick. The field just doesn't look right. I'm sorry, but I second the counterfeit opinion. Got the weight of it by chance?
I don't think it's counterfeit. Looks a little odd but that may be because it's seen some acid or been dipped to holy hell. Also, the image is taken at an angle which skews some features of the coin.
Surface looks odd on the obverse almost looks to have a bit of a wire rim too except where it's gouged away looks like they really nailed the strike wicked full bands
I would say counterfeit. After staring at a real 1917 MS64 merc for a while, I notice some subtle differences. The most obvious is the back of the neck. For the one in this post the back of the neck is pretty straight with only a slight curve towards the bottom. The real one flares out more. If it is counterfeit, that's one of the most detailed I've seen.
Does anyone have any opinions on the orange peel texture all over the obverse? Is this normal, or a tip off to something bad? Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk
I don't think it's fake either. The orange peel texture could be caused by acid exposure, as someone earlier suggested may have happened to this coin.