I found 303 of these mixed in with a box of halves. What do you think caused it? Crack or something else? All 303 have the identical mark. Also, what do you all think they may be worth? They are all uncirculated or VERY nearly so. Only look like they have been dumped into a counter and rolling machine one time.
It's not raised above the coin's surface, so, a die crack is out of the question. I would guess some kind of machine caused the PMD on every coin.
Struck through something stuck to the die? Coins are struck under tremendous pressure, creating much heat. Maybe a stray piece of scrap somehow adhered to the die due to the heat and pressure.
If you have 303 of these that are identical...duh, do you think it is from the obverse die? Larry Nienaber
It is not raised, it is indented, like a scratch, but with 303 identical it is definitely NOT post mint. Yes, all the same date and mint mark; identical. Had to be on the obverse die as Atrox says. any more thoughts?
still wondering if someone has an idea of how this could be made. I agree a crack would have made a raised mark not an indent, right? or could a crack push into the coins? Just curious about the process that could have produced this.
If someone dumped all of these coins into a coin machine, it could be the reason. it might be in the same spot because once the coin is in the machine it is droped into a "coin tube" like a roll of coins.... there might be something that scratches them or so.
Yes, but, I think the coin rolling experts on here, might be telling us, that the machine does not rotate each coin to the exact same orientation, then stamps the flaw in the exact same spot on every coin. A photo of multiple examples from the OP, would probably illustrate his point with a bit more clarity.
here are 2 side by side. the identical indentation in the identical place on all 303. All identical. had to be the die at the mint. But how did that happen? I can understand something scratching or denting the die, but that would leave a raised place on the coin. How does it leave an indentation on the coin?
this one is easy to see what did this. the coins are called struck thru coins like rickmp said in post number 5. a piece of foreign material got stuck onto the die face and stayed there while the die struck the coins. I have rolls of state quarters where a chip had fallen out of the die then the chip got stuck onto another area of the die and made a perfect sunken in impression of the detached chip. the area where the chip fell out of the die is a raised area.
interesting. I would have thought the die would be to hard to have something embed into it. I would think what ever little bit of something got between the coin and the die on that first strike would have embedded into the coin, not the die. but there it is. thanks y'all
Well its been a while since I did anything with these. I decided to take some examples to the Long Beach show. Went by the NGC booth and they weren't any help. Stopped by ANA and one fellow there took a good look and then said "lets take a walk" He walked me over to a booth and someone who really know about such coins. (I am still kicking myself, I am so bad with names. embarrassing I can't remember his name) GREAT GUY. I got to sit with him and probably spent 20 minutes or more looking at them and analyzing them. In the final analysis we had to agree they were post mint. But really had us going. They really look a LOT alike, but finally, we did see enough differences that it could only be post mint. Well, disappointing, but back into circulation they go. Still, it was a fascinating journey and learned a lot about identifying a new variety. At the end I asked "I wonder why someone would go to that much trouble to do this to so many coins?" He just said, to quote a famous error collector, "I don't know, I wasn't there" Guess that about says it.
303, all almost identical, all on the same date and mint, all in the same location, I would be very skeptical of PSD. It really sounds like something stuck to the die and was doing a strike throughs.
That's what I thought too. and the fellow at the Long Beach show, who has a LOT of experience, spent a long time with them, to be sure, because at first glance he though so too. but having never seen this sort of mark as a die mark, he really checked them out closely. In the end, he did some very close checking on placement of the mark and did see a small variation in position. Also, he placed the coins on flat glass and rocked them, to see it they were flat. about half were still flat but about half were a little concave (would be made concave by a punch) and also we found 2 out of the 20 samples I had with me where you could see a little push through bump where who ever did this hit the punch just a little harder and dimpled the back side. Finally, there was a small variation of the mark, where some were deeper on the left side and some on the right. Still the variation of location was so small that you really needed a loop to see it. Someone really spent a lot of time on doing this. Speculation?--- maybe used a jig to align the coin first, and to hold the punch in position. Perhaps projected an image onto the coin in the jig, or could have used a laser pointer, or somehow set the alignment. also would have hand to have the punch in the jig to have it hit so close to the same each time. There was also some difference in how hard each was struck that could not be explained by the die/press. Finally, the margins around the mark were not really consistent with what you would expect if it was a strike through or an embedded bit stuck on the die face. subtle, but not exactly. So in the end, it looks like someone either had a strange notion or wanted to deliberately try to counterfeit a variety error. But then you have to ask why would they have been put back into circulation? All questions that will probably never be answered. because... "we were not there" fun while it lasted, great journey and learned a lot.
