Can anyone explain what striation is to me please?

Bringing back memories with this one ! And I think a short history lesson might be in order here.

The OP of this thread, zaneman, his questions were like those of many when they first join this forum. And what he did and what he accomplished as a result of his joining it, well that serves as good example of what one can do as well.

Ya see, Zane was one of those who learned and learned quickly. Of course he put a lot of time, effort, and work in to accomplish that. As the years went by and his knowledge increased, it increased exponentially. Before long he applied and was immediately hired as a grader by PCGS, where he soon became highly respected for his abilities. But that was only the beginning. After PCGS Heritage hired him, and for the toughest and hardest to get job there is in numismatics - also the highest paying job there is in numismatics. And since very good graders can earn $200k plus, that's saying something. Zane was hired as a buyer by Heritage. His job was to travel the country attending all the coin shows, auctions, and visiting all the dealer shops looking for coins to buy for Heritage the largest dealer there is. But each and every coin had to be exceptional for one reason or another. Many if not most of them candidates for upgrades - and he had to be right in his judgement.

He proved to be very successful at this as well. So successful that he soon went on his own, became a dealer himself is what I was told by another forum member (The_Cave_Troll) who also worked at Heritage. One who also got his start here on CoinTalk and is now one of the senior guys at Heritage. Since then I haven't heard what happened to Zane but knowing him I'll bet he's done well

Anyway, it kind of goes to show to you what one can accomplish by being a member of this forum !

 

The term striations covers a whole lot of territory, and depending context it can legitimately and accurately be applied to all different kinds of lines on coins caused by many different things.

 

Technically, yeah you're correct because the radial flow lines are not truly parallel to every other line on the coin. But for all intents they are so close to being parallel to the lines immediately left and right of each other that using the word parallel to describe them - well, it works to produce a pretty accurate picture in someone's mind I guess would be the best way to put it. But truly parallel, no, they're not.