Weak strike or some sort of double - everything seems to tail off into the field, and there is extra stuff under the date mostly sticking out the NE of it (if the date was Horizontal) Rev has the similar fillets
Looks like a coin that was struck by a die later in its life. Seems especially common on nickels. Completely normal from what I can see. Keep up the hunt!
All three of those pictures were posted good, but you only need one of each side heads or tails upright. We can look all over the cent when you post like these.
Are you saying you suspect someone tampered with the coin, besides relatively normal wear? How do you think the extra metal near these highlighted areas got there? I am a noob, but to me it looks like either a light strike that didn't take the features down to the field and flatten the field completely, or it was hit at least a second time, that strike not being hard enough so it smooshed what was under. Either that or the die is that way somehow. What is that error called?
To me the various rotations on the scanner bed highlight different areas better, you can see better different things from the different directions the scanner illuminates from, don't you agree? My goal is to represent to you what I see.
A good trick to do if using a flatbed scanner, is to place the cent directly on the glass and then lay a dark piece of paper on top of it before shutting the lid. That helps with the glare and helps enhance the features. The lid of my scanner seems to cause reflections and glare otherwise.
I'm not suggesting that it was tampered with outside the mint. I am also not saying it is an error. It is a product of a later-stage die strike...a completely natural process. The coin is normal.
