By now you guys should know that I like to do these quizzes my way but I will buckle to criticism and attempt to please more of you by posting an image of the entire coin: This is a 1921 Morgan dollar. Two Part Quiz: What caused the horizontal lines on Liberty's face? What do we call the dark streaks? Hopefully the folks who know about minting errors will not respond with an answer too quickly so others can take a guess first.
Question 1: possibly album slide marks, though I'm not sure because they are not on the highest point of the cheek.
Are the "dark marks" dark from all angles, or are they brighter or darker than the rest of the coin depending on light and viewing angle?
1) The scuff mark appears to be a wheel mark/counting machine damage though it usually has a slight curve that this does not. It just seems to severe to be an album slide mark IMO. 2) The dark streaks are typically referred to as luster grazes or frost breaks.
JeffB, asked: "Are the "dark marks" dark from all angles, or are they brighter or darker than the rest of the coin depending on light and viewing angle?" What do you think? Dark from all angles, or brighter or darker than the rest of the coin depending on light.
I think they're bag marks, caused by contact between coins during transport, which break the luster. If that's true, they'd change from bright to dark as you tilted and rotated the coin under a light source.
The horizontal lines look like slide marks, the dark lines could just be random circulation scratches that have picked up dirt. Should coins like this be given a hot water rinse?
They look like die file lines that weren't struck out sufficiently after trying to erase a clash mark or similar
If we file a die, it will put thin grooves into the die face. Think about what that would look like on a struck coin. Then explain why your post was not a good guess.
Dark marks appear to be bag marks as stated previously. Could the scrape be from a damaged planchet that was not fully struck out?
To me the lines look raised. Obviously if they are incuse then PMD or a strike through. Or a wild guess at feeder finger marks but probably not in that location
Actually looking at those horizontal lines on the face, there is curvature to them. Could this be some abrasion from a counting or packaging machine?
Honestly, to me, it just looks like "a scuff". Something dragged across the coin's surface after it was struck, hard enough to leave a track. If it's something more exotic than that, I can't tell from this photo with my level of experience.
After a closer look, this has to be a scrape from (?) post mint and post bag marks. The color of the scrape appears lighter and I can see metal displacement across the dark marks .
There seems to be a slight curve to the group of cheek marks, so maybe from a coin counting machine. I don't think anyone has mentioned roller marks yet so I'll throw that out there for consideration.