Grading help please

Recently, I was surprised to learn that PCGS has certified a two-headed 5 cent coin.

http://minterrornews.com/discoveries-2-13-17-pcgs-certifies-unique-two-headed-nickel.html

This shook my world enough, but then I looked at the coin, and then the grade. I then looked back at the coin, and back at the grade and figured that I must be asleep. It is now apparent that I am wide awake and that the coin is real.

How the heck does THAT coin grade MS-65???

Please help me understand this.

 

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So, there's a big gouge that matches up on both sides at Jefferson's chin, meaning the planchet was struck with a damaged die only on 1 side then flipped over and struck with the same die only on one side? Am I wrong? Would that create the obliterated look of the surfaces?

 

Hm. MS-65. Hmm. I guess not too many other examples exist to compare it to.

 

how can you put any grade on it, isn't the grade just arbitrary anyways? shouldn't it just be graded "authentic" as that's all that matters?

curious how they determine it's authentic

 

I have no idea how that qualifies as MS 65 either.

 

How is this possible? 2 obverse dies?
As for the grade it doesn't even look XF-40.

 

No different than those graded sanding discs. An arbitrary number because they don't want such a rare coin in a details holder.

 

Almost looks like trial strikes.........someone creating a fantasy piece at the expense of the tax payers? I don't know how they came up with '65 on this but I suppose us 'sheep' must blindly follow.........

 

How would it "details"?

The coin is not altered nor cleaned. Why would it get details?

 

It ain't a coin, it's a sanding disk........the rediculousness continues.

 

R

This type of thing would never fool Fred Wine berg, though.

 

What about the 3 known coins that are tails on both sides?

 

Pieces like that aren't graded in the truest sense of the word, it's more a ranking system. Obviously something went horribly wrong and some is awful strike ect, but MS 65 gives them room to move other pieces up or down if another MS surfaced.

 

Some of those scratches look like they happened after the fact. But as I have no idea how this was made to begin with it is just a guess.

 

They're in different places and different shapes and sizes. Not the same gouge. The bottom picture the gouge is higher, wider and curves up while the top picture is a thin straight line positioned lower on the chin.

 

I'll take your word for it. But I wonder if there were 2 different obverse dies, and if my question about there being no reverse die in place causing the "ratty" look?

 

The enlarged pics at the bottom of the link show it pretty well, and actually I am not sure those weren't post mint hits checking it again. I have no idea how that happened, I was thinking maybe two obverse dies made a few of those and that one snuck out when they caught the others or something along those line. Something clearly went horribly wrong when that was struck

 

Gem condition? Yeah, right.