In a way, lowball collecting is a numismatic oddity. In the past, coins would often stay in circulation until they were unrecognizable. Nowadays, they seem to just get destroyed and/or replaced, they get washed en masse at sorting facilities, etc. So, it's far less common to find coins which have naturally worn down to appearance which the lowball collectors are searching.
Extremely worn coins usually are recycled...they are at the end of their life expectancy. But some tell a story albeit a short one. Worn mercury dimes and buffalo nickels, even non-silver with no more date showing, are saved and retain value. Your two dimes probably saw action overseas in France during the Great War, "The War to End All Wars". Now imagine the tales those dimes could tell... I have one in very slightly better shape at G4, 1904, my grandmothers birthyear. Spark
How much lighter? Do you have an actual figure is this just based on a subjective "feeling" that it seems much lighter? Without a good deal of practice the typical person can't recognize a difference in weight between two items if it's less than 5 g, and a silver dime is only 2 1/4 g total. So trying to "feel" the difference in weight between two dimes is an exercise in futility.
I found a clad "reject" quarter like that one mixed in with 90% Washingtons. I hope that I did't spend it!
It's much a lot lighter just by holding one coin in each hand there is a drastic difference but I will weigh both and let u know. Can u tell how much a barber dime is supposed to weigh.
Most of the silver dimes, Barber Mercury Roosevelt all weigh 2.5 grams. Because of circulation, wear, little chunks missing if yours weighs 2-3 tenths less it would be normal. Under 2 grams is light but only for a coin in good condition. The quarter I posted is also thin, it could have been stuck in a dryer. Things happen to coins.
One thing I know for certain. If I were thirsty and needed a drink out of a vending machine, that old quarter would not get me there. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a clad quote that “used”.
The coin in Michael K's post is not natural wear from circulation. Neither is the coin in post #17 and post #30. They have been "helped", before the went back into circulation. That's one of the problems with paying big premiums for lowball coins. With a little patience, you can take any coin and polish it down with various grit grinding media. I used to mount SEM samples and we had diamond paste down to 1 micron. You're not going to see any evidence of grinding at that level
Yes I found that coin and suggested it was probably a dryer coin. My point being that all kinds of things happen to coins to cause them to lose weight.
No, that's not it. There are "lowball" registry sets now. People purposefully collect highly worn coins with the hope they grade very low so they can add them to their registry set. You did get one thing right. IMO, it's a numismatic oddity. People will pay big premiums for some of these just so they can get some mythical point total and then puff their chest with their registry rank.
That's crazy I just simply love the history these coins carry with them. So I weighed my coin and you guys are right it is like 3 tenths of what the other barber is lol. I guess it threw me off because I have a 1941 Walking Liberty half dollar that I dug out of the ground that doesn't look that worn.
It's possible the Walker was lost early in it's life and didn't circulate much, so it's not very worn.
I agree with not paying for the ones like that quarter or dime lol I got my barber when I bought a roll of wheat cents.