What do you guys know about this variety? To be honest, I am not familiar with it. Link: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=170099139751&ssPageName=STRK:MEWA:IT&ih=007
New one on me too. Don't know how they could have faked this, though, on a mint state grade this clean.
The 1942 S & 1943 S and other dates Walking Liberty half halve dollars had the engravers initials polished off on some of the revers dies. They are suppose to be pretty rare but there's very little collector interest in them. Probably due to the fact that not very many folks know about them. Lou
Well, I'm still going to consider my US collecting finished, since the WL set I completed several months ago is "complete" to my satisfaction.
I checked The Cherry Pickers Guide and they have a 1945 Walker listed. VG 8 $30.00 AU 50 $200.00 MS 63 $500.00. There's also a 1916 Mercury dime with the engravers initials missing on the obverse, again very rare. I read the article back in the 1990's and if I remember correctly the die with the missing engravers initials (on the Merc.) was a pattern die. Lou
The AW on the coin is incuse which means that on the die the initials are raised. And theyare also on a field area of the coin which means they are on te highest part of the die as well. So you have rased initials on the highest part of the die. This meant that the initials were the absolute highest thing on the die. S you can inagine what happened anytime they had to do polishing of the die. If they ever did much they would polish the initials right off the die. The best known examples is the 1918, I belive 18-S issue, and the 1942 proofs with missing initials. They occur on several different dates. Thereis not a lot of interest in them and I don't believe there is any comprehansive listing of known dates and mints. But since it was the result of a simple polished die it could occur on many years nad on even more than one die in a given year.
I found the 1917-D & 1943-(P) "Discovery Coins" back several years ago. The 1943-S is the most common and well known. It's listed in the Breen book (#5200). There is very little interest in the coins.
