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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;GDJMSP, post: 717182, member: 112&quot;]On this coin, it&#039;s both. This one is actually an easy one, there are clues !</p><p><br /></p><p>On the obverse, you notice the flat hair. OK, that&#039;s the most obvious. But now look at the contact marks in the hair. See &#039;em ? There&#039;s lots of them right on top the flat spots and some of them are very fine, tiny. Also, look closely and notice the different color of the flat spots. In the bottom band of hair, see the indentation that is supposed to be there, the deep one to the left of center of that band. See the luster and color - now look at how grey the flat spot is beside it on the right. That&#039;s wear that causes that color change.</p><p><br /></p><p>Now where it can get confusing with some coins is that a weak strike will also have a different color than a lustrous area. But that color will be different yet from wear. It will tend to be lighter in shade than wear, but yet darker than a lustrous area. It takes experience to see this readily and know one from the other. But it can be learned. All those contact marks, expecially the tiny, tiny ones on the flat spots are clue it is wear. </p><p><br /></p><p>Now follow the back edge of the ponytail up, see the 2 clumps of hair that the edge points to. Look at them closely. The bottom clump has only a few, the upper one above and slightly right of it has a lot of contact marks. Clusters of marks like that only occur with wear.</p><p><br /></p><p>Now with coins that have wear, sometimes the rims can be another clue. If there is wear, often the rims will show it. They might be dinged up a lot, so remember to check them. On this coin, the obv rims are fairly clean though.</p><p><br /></p><p>Now look at the reverse. The first thing my eyes see are the motto - lots of little hits. Then I look at the rim around that area - quite a few more little hits, again some very tiny. Following the rest of the rim, in particular the bottom, tons of little hits. Even on the legends and down in between the letters.</p><p><br /></p><p>Now the center of the coin. The steps you mention, look at the two corners, some bigger hits, but a ton of tiny ones. And look at the clusters of small indentations on the left corner of the steps and a quarter way in from the right corner. Same thing for the dome and the left fascia of the portico. All of this indicates wear. To me, those tiny indentations always look like what happens when a coin falls on the sidewalk and gets stepped on. Once is enough. And if you wanna see what it looks like, take a new cent or something and drop it on the sidewalk. Then walk over and step on it. Then look at it - you&#039;ll see what I mean.</p><p><br /></p><p>So what you have here is a coin that was weakly struck to begin with and then received wear on top of it. Hopefully this will help to see it the next time.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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