Mint issues - Where's the line between error and damage? If any..

The first coin is not a strike through grease . . . it was struck after the planchet delaminated.

The second coin was struck with a very badly eroded reverse die.

One cannot reliably predict the mindset of the graders when coins such as these reach their desk. They are afforded some latitude in determining whether coins like these should be assigned a grade. Thus, the ability to value-grade coins.

 

Yes.

 

Those are pretty strong polishing lines . . . I have a Columbian Half that has extraordinary polishing on it . . . it appears as though it's been abusively cleaned with a Brillo pad and lots of elbow grease. I speculate that the TPGs would never dare grade it because 99.9% of those who examine it would draw the wrong conclusion . . . another case of "value-grading", I guess, although I've never submitted it. If I can find it, I'll post images.

 

Not to be argumentative, but I'm not in your camp, especially on the 42-S.

The delamination of the planchet, post-strike would have almost completely lifted both the "L" and "T" from the coin. While work-hardening of the coin produces sub-surface strain, and some definition of the letters below the surface, you would see mere ghosting of the letters . . . nothing more.

 

By examination, the terminal tear is at the top of the lamination (at the base of the portico), so the delamination began below the letter "T" and progressed upward. In order for the piece to continue peeling upward, across the "T", the material must not have been severed, or it could not continue to pull material away from the coin.

Although more material could have pulled to either side of the "L", I make the same case in that area as well.

 

Oh, they'll know alright, but they will likely assign a grade based on what they think the market will perceive the coin to be worth. If likely buyers of the coin are going to think the coin is cleaned, I don't think the TPGs will grade it.

In contrast, if the coin were a very high end Grant or Maine, I don't think they'd hesitate to grade it because those issues are widely known to be struck with profusely polished dies.

 

Good question, and difficult to answer. The same phenomenon appears on the coin above, where you can see gouges in the planchet which, were it not for the fact that the gouges clearly went under, and therefore preceded the striking of the letters, one would reach the same conclusion you did.

A peeling lamination does not travel around obstacles . . . it comes out much the same way that it went in . . . as a single piece of contiguous material rolled into the strip, before the letters were struck into the surface of the coin. The only way the lamination would peel around the letters is if it had been rolled into the coin, around letters that had already been struck into its surface.

 

I realized all too late that I should have completed my text before adding the images, rather than the other way around.

As for the pre-strike gouges, I was referring only to those through "E PLURIBUS UNUM" and "IN" . . . not to that scrape across "GOD WE".

- Mike