Altered Surfaces?

Yes. They are explanations of how a coin can become to look the way it appears in the picture. You'll notice that there was no conjecture that it was hit with a Dremel, because it didn't appear to anyone as though it was. Nobody is asserting that they know what happened to this coin.

 

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The coin under discussion reminds me of a "problematic" 1836 cbh I bought years ago. When I bought it it looked like this:

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After reading for a while and frequenting various fora, including this one, I concluded that it had been treated with bleach. So I dipped it.


The lighting exaggerates the hairlines, it has a high gloss, polished look.
Now it's a pocketpiece:


We will carry it around for a while longer and massage it a bit and see what happens.

 

Nice job! Looks like you took it from AU details to almost an honest XF-45 already.

 

Yeah, just have to keep it awayfrom the car keys, that's how it picked up that light scratch on the cheek.

 

Interesting, didn't know you could tone coins with bleach.

 

Sodium hypochlorite turns silver toning from a long slow process through bunches of different colors into a "dangit I want it black NOW!" kind of process.

Same effect as end-stage toning, only in seconds. Hides hairlines fast.

 

The surfaces have an unnatural/glossy sheen, and I see no trace of original mint luster, indicating that the surfaces have been manipulated. The coin does not look prooflike either, and it reacts to light in the way I would expect a polished or abrasively cleaned coin to look. I would call it AU details, altered surfaces.

 

Interesting.