1875 Indian weak strike/die trial

Nope. Just worn and damaged, I'm afraid. Neither a weak strike nor a die trial. It's definitely PMD (post-mint damage), as mentioned.

The damage is kind of interesting, though. It looks to me as though someone started to make a love token out of it, but never finished the job.

Here's an interesting Civil War military-themed love token I once had, done on an 1863 Indian cent.




@Paddy54 also has some neat ones done on Indian cents.


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Y'know what I'd do with that? I'd hire a hobo nickel artist (we have one or two in residence here, I think), and have 'em carve something cool onto that blank reverse, to complete the job that the Victorian would-be craftsman left unfinished.

It would then become a one-of-a-kind collectible that would be more appreciated, instead of just a damaged coin everybody that looks down their nose at.

"Have somebody carve something onto your coin" is definitely not the sort of advice I'd usually give, but, hey- if the coin is already damaged, and you've got a blank canvas there on the reverse, so to speak... well... it's just an idea...

 

Wait, wait! Never mind.

Actually... you know... looking closer at that, it appears that maybe there was a love token done there after all. Just a very crude one. Does anybody else see a capital "D" initial on there like I do?

Rotate the reverse to the left a few degrees. See it there? I'm almost certain now that there is a hand-carved "D" on there.

@Lorenzo Pappaceno - your grandma or someone else in your family didn't by any chance have a "D" initial in their name, did they?

There you have it. It's a crude 19th century love token. I'm almost sure of that now. Though the engraving is not particularly artistic, its being a love token raises it above "plain old damaged coin" status, at least.

Still not worth more than a few bucks, but a bit more interesting, anyway.

 

Yes, if they had an 1870s fingerprint database, you could ID the “artist”.