While searching a friend's coins before he cashed them in, I found the most interesting error coin I have ever seen. I took photos with my phone, but everyone who saw those poor photos claimed the "error" was simply glue. I may not be a coin expert, but I know metal. There is clearly metal that has been moved either during planchette manufacturing, during minting, or some inexplicable and complex event post-minting. My bet is dried glue & threads stuck to the planchette before minting. The below photos are from NGC, but I won't have an official answer until the coin goes through conservation for "glue residue". Opinions? Ideas? [Edit] Added better images.
Put the dime in a pot with water and heat the water. Careful remove ad it’s hot and gently scratch the area with a toothpick. I’m sure you’ll find that it’s glue or some type of adhesive on the coin. I’ve never seen a mint error that produces that kind of effect and I collect error coins.
I am letting NGC do the cleaning, as some of the delaminations around (and over) the "glue" appeared fragile to me.
That occured after it left the US Mint. That's totally clear adhesive. Put it in acetone and it will come right off. You will never convince any of us here on CoinTalk that it's an actual mint error caused at the US Mint Or send it to NGC and lose both the grading and error Attribution fees. Waste of money!
I am not here to convince anyone, I am letting NGC make the call. Yes there is glue in the grooves, but as stated in the title, I am looking for opinions on to what may have caused this damage, even post-mint, if not a strikethrough of glue. I do not consider it a waste of money. After hours of looking at the coin, I noted that: the grooves do exist, they are substantial, they appear to have continuous flow lines through them, and that delaminations or flow occured around and over some of these features (as well as over some of the residue). All of the above was enough for me to happily waste a few additional dollars on a multiple coin submission. If I'm wrong, I am wrong, It is not as serious as you make it sound.
I think this is an impossible theory. There is no glue anywhere in the production process. "The annealing furnace heats the blanks to temperatures up to 1,600 degrees Fahrenheit in an oxygen-free environment." https://www.usmint.gov/learn/production-process/coin-production Even if there was somehow glue on the blank, it's not going to survive 1600 degrees. Then washed, dried, run through the upsetting mill, and struck. If it was me, I'd take the advice here and soak it in acetone before spending money on NGC.
Thanks for posting excellent photos. This does not look like glue. It does look like a genuine error from here, but one that I have no experience with. It seems to me that the surface of the planchet was exfoliating, and the bits of metal were struck back into the intact portion of the planchet. Either that, or numerous bits of metallic debris were struck into the coin. Can you provide a precise weight? That might tell us whether the struck-in metal is intrinsic to the planchet or is an add-on. I would love to examine it up close and write it up for my Coin World column (Collectors' Clearinghouse). By the way, if NGC is perceptive enough to recognize it as a genuine error, they're likely to apply a humdrum label like "defective planchet". Not very illuminating.
