1957d LWC - strangely rectangular delamination

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You should shop around. Etsy would probably list it as a "one of a kind" worth at least $75k.

 

Haha, I've been hearing that. Remind me not to shop for coins on Etsy in the future.

 

Thank you for posting.

 

Thanks for posting Paddy.

 

Thank you for posting.

 

Lamination errors are not simple as they vary in types. Hopefully what I said, the web link and 2 examples provided will help you to have a better understanding of them.

 

Nice, it's definitely a keeper. Thanks for sharing.

 

I don't have the piece in hand, but my initial impression is tooling.

 

FWIW I had questions about the very straight lines down each side of the lamination, yet the 'grain' of the coin seems to be perpendicular to those lines within the delaminated section itself. I wondered at that disparity.

Interestingly though, there don't seem to be tool marks heading SW/NE inside of the delaminated area so it seems doubtful it was gouged up.

 

The lamination is due to a weak area on the planchet. That could be the result of any number of things, from impurities in the composition to just a bad mixing of the metals. For whatever the reason, the area isn’t where we need it to be able to take the strike; rather, it’s brittle there. The strike literally lifts it right off. Our vernacular for that event is, “peel.” But it’s the beginning and end of it. There’s no evolution, these don’t grow. At times the pieces hang on, and sometimes they don’t, as seen in some of these pictures.

 

Not having the coin in hand, my first look at the photo had me saying it was an addition to the surface, not a removal. I based that upon not seeing any shadows that suggest raised or incused area. The "shiny" part matches the wear shine of the higher points on the coin, so my conclusion was "added material." While everyone else, save @charley accepts it as a lamination error, I of course question myself, but can you confirm the area is incused to put my mind at rest?

 

Hey Mountain Man, yeah, it looks incuse to me - but just barely. I've tried to snap a few angled pictures but you can't really easily see the edge of the lamination. You can see that the letters in liberty are raised in comparison, though.

Interestingly you can see in the bottom photo that the bottom of the lamination has a layer you can see the edge on that does seem raised, but the rest of the lamination seems flat or microscopically incused to me.

Let know if you have thoughts on better ways I can photograph this...

Focused on bottom edge of the lam:


Focused on top edge


Less angled


Looking directly down over liberty:


The coloring on this microscope sucks - sorry about that.

 

Have you used a tooth pick or your finger nail to run over the area and see what happens? In your new photos, it still looks undefined to me.

@Fred Weinberg. @JCro57, others?

 

As I said earlier, it looks like it broke off at the bottom that you now confirm as raised.

 

Ok, took me a bit to figure out how to share video over youtube. I'm using a porcupine quill for this instead of a toothpick, but it still shows that it catches on the far edge of the lamination as I move over it.

Hopefully it's viewable:


No idea why there's hissing sounds on it - the microscope doesn't have a microphone that I'm aware of...

 

Wait, does this mean I have a retained lamination!?

 

No, that’s where it broke off, at the high spot, just above the I in LIBERTY.

 

Yeah, I figured. Oh well, one could hope. I'll keep looking for a retained.

 

Excellent. That shows it is indeed incused and a missing portion. Thanks your for taking the time to do this and remove any misconceptions I had.
No doubt about it now, a lamination error, IMO also.