Lots of questions about this 1859 Large cent that just came my way. Any ideas what is going on with the "splattered metal" on the reverse? IIhavent tried and acetone to clean it up in general. An thoughts on specific variety? Thanks!
I think it's glue, not metal. Looks amber in color and a bit transparent. Should come off with an acetone soak and then a gentle rolling of a Q-Tip that's been dipped in acetone.
Due to the lighter bright copper color on Cent and the date it looks like a form of damage caused by a light scrape. The higher spots could be glue or a gum like matter. They should come off.
Until I looked at the 1, 8, and "T", I thought that it was just spatter or glue or something. but looking at spots other than the spatter, I think that someone tried to start to manually put something on the reverse design and spilled whatever it was .... paint, plating, glue, etc. I can see no real variety there, although the die-trackers from the Haxby site may assign a marriage pairing for you .. but no variety I've ever seen and I have around 1000 1959's.
