1880 morgan silver dollar aproximate grade ? die clash?

help grading this 1880 morgan and question on the markings

 

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If this is a scan, it probably accounts for why I don't see any luster. If it is a regular photo, then the coin has been improperly cleaned. The diagonal gouges in Liberty's cap look like they were on the die, itself, and they should be raised on the coin. The damage in the upper left obverse field looks pretty severe, and could either limit the grade or give cause for a Details grade. My opinion?

MS Details - Improperly Cleaned & Damaged

Chris

 

Au détails, the line are die lines or die gouges. Just some fun they were having making the dies. You can likely find VAM associated with these lines at vamworld.

 

this is a scan and it still has all the luster could you please help me with a couple of questions (best scanning settings) and most important how can I tell the difference between a scratch and something elevated if the scratches seem elevated too? sorry if I dont have the coin at hand?

 

All scanners are different, and none of them show luster properly.

You can tell the difference by if it is raised or not. If it is raised, it was made at the mint, if it is not raised, it is damage.

 

As Kirk said, scanners are rarely ever able to show the luster on a coin because it uses so much light in the scan that the luster is "washed out".

It is pretty easy to tell the difference between a scratch or gouge on a coin or whether it was on the die itself. A gouge on a coin will be recessed (incuse), and a gouge on the die will appear raised on the coin because the metal will flow into the void left by the gouge on a die. If you examine the gouge in the obverse field between Liberty and "E P", you should be able to see what I like to call the "crater effect". When the coin was damaged, the metal has to go somewhere, and it is most often pushed up and out along the edges of the gouge (like an impact crater.)

Some people can tell the difference with the naked eye, while others (like me) will need a loupe or a microscope to tell the difference. Are you using magnification to view the coin? The only drawback with using a microscope under high magnification is that incused elements of a design can appear to be either raised or incused unless you already know what it is supposed to look like. The viewing of this raised or incuse image is called perspective.

I don't know if you've ever taken mechanical drawing/drafting, but you can understand perspective by viewing a 3D drawing of a cube on a piece of paper. The paper is only two-dimensional (flat), and to show the third dimension, you need to see all the edges of the cube. It will look like a simple, six-sided framework. When you look at the framework, the cube may appear to be facing down and to the right or it could be facing up and to the left. It depends on your perspective if the faces are blank, but if you add, say, the pips like those on dice on the three forward sides, it is easy to tell which direction it faces. Of course, this is probably more than you really needed to know, but I hope that it will help you to understand the differences in your viewing perspective.

I'm including a couple of images taken with my stereomicroscope to illustrate how perspective can be applied when viewing the letters in LIBERTY. Are they raised or incuse?

Chris

 

thank you so so much You are my hero answered all my questions