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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;19Lyds, post: 1437113, member: 15929&quot;]The Philadelphis IKE&#039;s have always been plagued with annealing marks which are often referred to as &quot;chicken scratching&quot;.</p><p><br /></p><p>Prior to being sent to the coining press, these coins went through a cleaning and annealing process where they were literally rotated and tumbled in big drums like washing machines. This created countless hits that, given enough pressure of the die, got eliminated through metal flow. The Philadelphia press operators weren&#039;t big fans of die pressure for these large copper nickel clad coins and the end result is some serious chicken scratching which most folks interpret as hits.</p><p><br /></p><p>The key to determining the difference between an annealing mark (pre-mint but not grade limiting damage, to an extent) and a hit (post mint damage and definitely grade limiting) is by close examination. An annealing mark will look like a hit in a photograph but upon closer examination, shows what actually looks like a tear or broken area in the surface of the coin (Red Arrows below). Often these are filled with unstruck metal. Sizeable hits from other coins will always show remnants of the reeding from reeded coins or some type of angular gouge from non-reeded coins (Green Arrows below). Mostly, large hits on these IKE Dollars have to occur at ejection time since the coins themselves are incredibly hard and it requires some determined force to make a sizeable gouge in them. What I mean by that is that as the coins are struck, they are very hot and still relatively soft. Once they&#039;ve cooled off, they&#039;re very, very hard. They can scratch but they are difficult to gouge. I don&#039;t know if I&#039;m being very clear as it just takes some experience in determining whats what on these coins. Most certainly numerous, large annealing marks will limit an IKE&#039;s grade but never to the point of AU. AU requires luster breaks which are usually on the forehead, cheek and jawline.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH]176247.vB[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Annealing mark</p><p>[ATTACH]176245.vB[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>Annealing mark</p><p>[ATTACH]176246.vB[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>For the OP&#039;s coin, I&#039;m of the opinion that the amount of chicken scratching which show up on the reverse may limit the grade of the coin to MS64 even though it appears to have MS65 luster. Philadelphia IKE&#039;s are the absolute toughest to get graded in MS65 and higher because of the Philladelphia mints inability to strike out these annealing marks. Especially with the 1971&#039;s, 1972&#039;s and 1976 T1 coins. PCGS hasn&#039;t awarded an MS67 to any of these years. </p><p><br /></p><p>By all means, though, send your coin in since these are just as difficult to grade from a photograph as they can be in hand.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>The coin below is being sent in for a regrade since I feel that the luster is superb.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH]176249.vB[/ATTACH][ATTACH]176248.vB[/ATTACH][/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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