Coin weight question.

I know that as a coin gets worn it loses some of its mass, but is it possible for a dime that is supposed to weigh 2.5 grams to lose almost 18% of its mass and still be a solid good as far as strict grading standards go. The coin in question is an older barber that now weighs 2.07g and is nearly flat but maintains full rims, date, facial outline, basically all the requirements of a G-4.

 

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Nope. Either the coin is counterfeit or 1/5 of it is missing.

 

No, no, I have worn specimens that are AG/G that have lost 12 to 13% of their mass, I'm just wondering if it is possible to loss that much mass and still retain G-4 without being counterfeit.

 

How sure are you that the scale you are usiing is accurate? One quick test is to try a new (meaning unworn silver, not clad) dime on the same scale to see if it weighs 2.5 grams.

 

It's an accurate scale, I have a 10,20,50 and 100g weights I use on it and it has never been off by more than .01 g before I tare it.

 

I would still weigh another silver dime. Incidentally, mearly handling weight standards can change their weights 0.1 gram or more.

 

sorry i aint a coin experts like most of the people are here but i dont think it is possible

 

IMHO ​

If that much weight were lost by a genuine coin it would be a P-0 at best!

 

That must be one worn coin to weigh that little. either that you might have something. Could you post a pic? (Someone was bound to ask the question eventually! lol) Sounds interesting though. Never heard of anything like that before.

Phoenix

 

Just think about it. Usually with coin edges, they are reeded so not much weight is lost. Now if you claim that is 18% is lost, you are saying that 9% of each side is lost! Possible? Not likely. If you said 1-2% on each side due to wear, maybe. But 9% is just too unlikely.

 

Okay, here is a picture of the front. I don't have one of the back yet, or at least not one small enough to upload.

 

Ok, here's a crappy pic of the rev

 

Looks to me like way too much weight loss for the condition.

 

The pictures are deceiving, to me it almost looks as if it has been abraded, as if with water and sand or some other enviornmental damage. Those outlines you see are just that, outlines, they are almost completely flat.

 

Odd for sure. I never weighed a Liberty Head Dime so if going by the books, that coin lost a lot of material but anything is possible. I've always wondered just how accurate the machinery was back then to produce every coin at the exact weight all the time. If the Mint bought a sheet of material that was just a really tiy bit to thin, who would have noticed. Might have been possible. Like I said anything is possible so that coin could have started out a lot less than what it was supposed to be originally. I've got a bunch of really old worn ones so I'll have to try weighing them.

 

For your information. I just went and weighed 3 Barber (Liberty Head) Dimes. All are excessively worn. 1905 O, 1906, 1907. Weights are as follows 1905 O is 2.07G, 1906 and 1907 are both 2.09G. All are in approximately G to VG Grades. The 05 O is really worn the most. So looks like yours is normal or all mine are ?

 

Aha, thank you Carl, I had been suspecting this for a while, but only just received an accruate jeiings scale for christmas, :thumb:

 

In addition to my findings I forgot to add I used 2 different scales and repeatedly reweighed each coin several times. I even turned them over each time and the results were consistant. So either all my findings are wrong, both scales are wrong, all three coins are fakes including yours or I shouldn't have had that Martini last night.