Ok. This has been bothering me for some time. I can understand where and why holes come from in coins. But, if there is already a hole, why would someone bother to try and "plug" it up? On the ones I've seen, it's not to try to cover up the original hole - it's pretty obvious. So what was (is) the point? Or am I missing something. Here is one of ten zillion examples (the plug is at 12 o'clock - duh)
Sometimes a plug helps a holed coin. Granted, the coin is still impaired but it is probably a nicer coin than it was with the hole. This is especially useful for very rare or otherwise valuable pieces. It is pretty pointless on coins like your example. (Maybe someone had nothing better to do on some rainy day and tried his hand at coin repair. If he got good at this craft he could have become an early coin doctor.)
Way, way back in the good old days and people just didn't have money, some would take any Silver coin and drill a hole or cut a section off the edge. Then proceed to spend them as normal, everyday money. Occationally a bank, store, etc would refuse a coin with a hole in it so people got smart. After drilling out a small hole for the Silver they would refill the hole with lead. Lead has always been cheap and accessable so no big loss. We used to get as much Lead as wanted from gas stations that had old batteries, tangled lines in the lakes with Lead sinkers, tire places with those balancing weights, shooting ranges. The Silver was turned in to a local jewler for a few cents but that was a lot of money back then. May not be why yours is that way, but many are.
Maybe the owner didn't need the hole in the coin anymore; or maybe he needed the hole for something else and removed it. ;-)
Ok Cloudsweeper, I understand what you're saying and the fact that I understand it, scares me more than a little bit.
I found a whole bracelet at a garage sale last summer, all seated dimes, all holed and shined up all perty. Lady said it was not a family heirloom and did not realize they were coins, must not have ever looked close at it. I think we got barely over melt for it on ebay, knowing that, I would have kept it
