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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;gboulton, post: 1062017, member: 27043&quot;]For me, determining &quot;wear&quot; or &quot;weak strike&quot; on a Kennedy has always been a bit tricky as well, but I&#039;ve found a couple of guidelines that...while I don&#039;t know how &#039;correct&quot; they are...usually allow me to come up with a grade reasonably close to what the &quot;experts&quot; do.</p><p><br /></p><p>1) The easiest way, for me, to distinguish is simply to look for wear elsewhere.&nbsp; The cheek bone is the BIG &quot;giveaway&quot; for me.&nbsp; The Kennedy half has a VERY pronounced high cheekbone (much as the late president himself did) when examined under a loupe.&nbsp; You might examine some proof coins first, just to get a feel for what you&#039;re looking for here.</p><p><br /></p><p>If you drop straight down from the &#039;point&#039; of the eye...the trailing &quot;end&quot; of it if you will...and look directly to the right of the bridge of the nose, you&#039;ll see a very &quot;high&quot; point on well struck coins.&nbsp; This point begins to wear VERY quickly, and the first sign is a &quot;dulling&quot; of the area, which will show up in photos as a different color/texture.&nbsp; Witness here (taken from your most recent photo)</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH]104889.vB[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>If there&#039;s wear there, then at least SOME of the hair loss is probably wear as well.</p><p><br /></p><p>2) Next, I take a look at how the hair lines themselves are formed, or how they &#039;fade&quot; into the weak area.&nbsp; Weakly struck examples, in my experience anyway, tend to leave &quot;hints&quot; of hairlines in the &quot;bald&quot; area (for lack of a better term) and the hairlines around the edge are fairly well defined and clear.</p><p><br /></p><p>In worn examples, on the other hand, the transition is gradual, and gradually moves from completely smooth to &quot;well defined&quot; as we move out.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH]104890.vB[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>See how the area is completely smooth, and then the hairlines increase in clarity slowly as they move out?</p><p><br /></p><p>Now, take a look at this one.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH]104891.vB[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>While it&#039;s tough in the low res pic (sorry, best I could find quickly *heh*) to see the hints of remaining hairline, note how just beyond the &quot;bald&quot; area, the hairlines are sharp and distinct.</p><p><br /></p><p>A wear pattern doesn&#039;t tend to &quot;smooth out&quot; a very small area and leave the surrounding edges completely undisturbed..it tends to &quot;blend&quot; or &quot;blur&quot; the edges, growing progressively less detectable as we move out from the high point.</p><p><br /></p><p>3) Finally, the rest of the coin just says &quot;circulated&quot; to me (in both examples).&nbsp; The dings above the ear in both don&#039;t SEEM to be bag marks to me, for example.</p><p><br /></p><p>===========</p><p><br /></p><p>Again...opinions may, of course, vary widely...and it&#039;s nearly IMPOSSIBLE to ever post an image and say &quot;You are seeing the coin as I do.&quot;&nbsp; Even the BEST, most representative photo is still going to be viewed on someone else&#039;s monitor, with their settings, in their software.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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