Welcome to another round of ddddd's guess the grade. This is my newest nickel...anyone see what is different about it? Please guess the grade and feel free to add any thoughts. Note: the lines that look like scratches (circled in the second photo) are both reflections of scratches on the plastic holder.
The nickel content is out of specification on that piece Looks like too much copper in the alloy. Haha, nice piece. I'm waffling between 63 and 64. 64 if the luster is there, 63 if it is not.
Yes well even with the toning, it didn't look like nickel. If not for the missing lettering I was almost black beauty. But cent planchet makes sense. Nice coin.
What an awesome coin, thanks for posting. Nice design details in the reverse. I would have given it an MS65 but for the dings on the jaw and cheek, so am guessing MS64.
I called it 64 and it appears to be struck on a cent planchet but I have a couple of questions I can't reconcile with what I'm seeing. The lettering at the rim on both sides appears to be clearly struck right up to the rim. The rims appear to be fully-formed and sharp. If a cent planchet was slid into a nickel closed-collar, you wouldn't see this, I don't think. OTOH, it was struck off-center which argues for the planchet being loose in the collar. So, is the alternative that a cent planchet was used in a cent closed-collar but nickel dies were then used? That doesn't make sense either. I think you would see evidence of the over-size strike in the rims because the dies would be larger than the collar. I'm looking forward to the authoritative explanation.
Keep in mind that planchets are fed through an upsetting mill before coining. This pre-forms the rim. It appears that this coin went through that mill, and the upset rim wasn't completely obliterated during the strike. This particular example is quite well centered, which makes it much more desirable in my opinion. They are far more commonly struck off center. This example is also nicely round - depending on the denomination and the planchet, these can have irregular shapes. This isn't possible. The nickel die is larger than the collar for the cent. The machine wouldn't work.
Looks like the majority got the grade or were within one point. I'm ok with it as a 63 or 64 (it lacks the strong luster to be any better than that).
