Hey guys take a look at this cent there's two cracks and what appears to be a small gold cud over liberty.
I don't see a cud along the rim. The radial cracks are pretty neat, but I don't think they would carry much of a premium. Chris
I love coins with die cracks, but I doubt they carry much of a premium...except when they're used as a diagnostic to identify some rare die pair (e.g. 1804 C-5 half cent).
I like it. I would pay a couple of bucks for it. If you pulled it from circulation, $2 would be a 2000% profit. I guess that counts as a small premium!
It appears to me to be right before the piece broke off of the die, which would produce a cud when it eventually did. Not a cud/chip yet though. It looks like it is a crack too. You can even see a crack down the face of the rim. If it was a cud there would be a raised blob of metal there where the piece of the die broke away. I love this coin, even if it has been cleaned! It is a messed up beauty!
I think there was some grime in that location, so while the rest of the coin toned, the area underneath there remained the same color. So when the piece of debris fell off, it revealed the color underneath. I don't think it's a retained cud or a die crack, as I am not seeing any evidence of die cracking in that area. In fact, on a second look, I think that this coin has been plated outside the mint. The elements are mushy and thick, and lack detail. I think the "die cracks" are just normal cracks that occurred on the plating...so, PMD in my honest opinion.
Not a die crack, IMHO. It looks more like a planchet flaw - not a die flaw. It was struck through a retained (attached) lamination.
That's why you are the expert. I didn't think about that until you said it. I have a '55 wheatie that was plated and half of the plating is gone. I just dug it out and looked at it. Mine doesn't look exactly the same, but very similar. (Mine looks a lot crappier, no cool colors at all) I think this is a very plausible answer.
The thing that first made me think the coin was plated was that despite it having a beautiful color, the thicker, mushier letters led me to believe that it was circulated. You can't have amazing colors on a coin so circulated that it loses its detail. I recall having a plated coin with a similar appearance and similar plating anomalies.
