Thank you all for your responses and any information will be greatly appreciated. Enjoy your day and stay safe!
It's a minor error called a die crack. That's a cool find, but it probably isn't worth any more than silver value because the crack is on the small side and the coin has been cleaned.
Than Thank you for responding and for your comment. I just wanted to let you know that the coin has not been cleaned. It was sitting in an old tin saving can with other silver coins and pennies for over 25 years. I know this because it is my grandmother's house, who will be 100 this coming may, that have been vacant for almost that long and my family just moves in less than a year ago.
Nice! Passed down from grandparents! They probably handled it. Maybe even rubbed it some. I would consider it priceless. And the little die crack/die chip is a metaphor for life. Nobody’s perfect
Nice coin but yes it has been cleaned. All the hair lines across the obverse show that. Don't let that bother you. It's not important on this coin.
OK I don't know how to put it, but this has not been clean in over 25 years that I know of. Maybe it was before they placed it in the saving box, but to my knowledge it hasnt been cleaned in 25 years
this image was taken with two different cameras. One seem to be going to the junk yard and the other has few more years left. could that be the problem. Maybe i should have used my Iphone
It's not the camera. The images clearly shows that the coin was cleaned. Believe me, it's the truth. The cleaning is not important because even if not cleaned the price of silver is it's value to a collector. The important thing is that the coin came from family. Nothing else is more important. You might want to put it in some type of holder for protection. Something to keep it safe if you decide to pass it down to family. I'm not saying to have it graded. There are several types of low cost holders that would be fine.
The reason coin collectors don't like cleaning is that once a coin has been improperly cleaned once, it's damaged forever. Rubbing a coin leaves small (or large) scratches in its surface, and to experienced collectors, that change is easy to spot. This coin really, really looks like it was cleaned, probably long before it even came into your grandmother's hands. I mean, if you get change at the store and there's some gunk on one of the coins, of course you're going to try to rub it off. That's what someone did to this coin, sometime between 1964 and 2000 (if, as you say, it's been put away for 25 years). And, as others have already said, it's not important for this coin. The die crack/chip is interesting (and good job spotting it, by the way!), but not enough to add much value. This one's worth $12 or so for its silver content, regardless of whether it's damaged or undamaged. But it's also something that your grandparents have held, regardless of whether it's damaged or undamaged. That's valuable!
Trying to be helpful - all those hairline scratches you see in your first image indicate that it was "cleaned." Maybe just rubbed once to get some dirt off, or silver polish on a cloth. We did the latter to a few coins from grandpa in the early 70s (and regretted it). Yours was probably done in that era too. Everybody did it. It was silver. You cleaned silverware to remove the tarnish and make them shiny, so coins were thought of the same. 1964 Kennedy halves in that condition are so common that cleaning it doesn't matter as said, it really only has silver value. But the sentimental value to you is far greater.
Now I see what you meant, I didn't understand what to look for being an unexperienced new at at collecting, but I can see the lines now that the image is more magnified. Thank you all for taking the time to help me understand and for the little education. I appreciate it very much and now I am going to look at all coins she had saved.
We understand but there are coins from the early 1800’s that will not straight grade due to being cleaned. In cleaning a coin it leaves hairline scratches to severe scratches on the coins surface. This always lowers the value of the coin.
