A few things.. Do you know how to crop your pictures? It looks like it was struck with a worn die. And.. Just a suggestion.. Try to use a less distracting background. A simple black or white color would suffice.
The coin really does look sharp. And thanks for posting it on the coin book--I was able to see the value of a coin without having to look it up! Otherwise, yeah, cropping is better.
From enlarging your photos, it simply looks like a plating issue on a crappy Zincoln cent. Nice? What are you seeing?
A neutral color, like gray, is a better background color. White will throw your color balance off, depending on your equipment and magnification. Personally, I use gray for brown and red brown cents, and black for gold and silver, although, maroon for gold is great. Royal Blue works well too for both gold and silver. I agree with @paddyman98 that there is deterioration going on, at the date and mint mark, but also on all the other letters on the periphery on both sides. I have made this comment before: Just because a coin looks new doesn’t mean it is collectible, imo. There are all kinds of reasons a newly minted coin should be rejected as a keeper, among die deterioration you can have a weak strike, faulty luster, spotting and planchet flaws. All of these can make a coin unappealing.
Posting on a background that has printed letters allows the camera to focus sharply on the letters. Sometimes this is better than the camera trying to focus on the coin itself.
That was kind of my point usually these coins even at that age are definitely showing a lot more of their zinc. I mean they're in really bad shape. I'm pretty sure this coin has close to it for full set of steps
True, but the DOF on my large sensor phone is so shallow the coin would be oof. If I use my good camera I can close it down for deeper DOF.
