Help with 1795 half dime

Explanation please? If you mean Weight adjustment those are definitely NOT done the way that type of adjustment would be made. I mean the scrape marks on the eagle's lower body, and the right wing and leaf area. There are definitely areas showing a very weak strike.

 

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Wowie Gazowie! Your friend hat quite a coin there. Its surfaces appear to be sound and the condition appears to be Extremely Fine. It is worth a few dollars times a million! No, just joking. According to Coin World's Coin Values (May 2011 issue) your friend's coins would list for $5,500 and then some!

 

It is because of the weak strike in those high areas that the adjustment marks survived. Most of the time they were obliterated during striking. At least this is what was explained to me, and is why PCGS chose to disregard those marks.

I am not very happy with this explanation either, David. We are used to seeing haphazard adjustment marks, inconsistent in depth and direction, when excess weight was removed by filing. Parallel marks we normally think of as roller or drawing lines.

I have also been told that while most all adjustment filing was done on overweight blanks, occasionally (and maybe especially in the early Mint days) a finished coin was filed. Maybe that's what happened here?

Whatever it is...adjustment, roller, or drawing, PCGS felt it was milling-related and not PMD, and did not deduct points for it. You can be sure this was not a 5-second graded coin.

Here is an example of roller milling marks. It's the reverse of a '39 half. Note the many lines up top. Roller marks usually come from debris sandwiched between the reducing rollers and the ingot being flattened. I can't imagine why there are so many lines in this example. One theory had to do with a scarred roller.

It's fun to imagine how these things happened. Knowledge and guesswork is involved, no doubt. Or maybe the TPG flips a coin.
Lance.

 

To well struck maybe but the condition its in is very well possible Silver/Gold do not disintegrate in the ground. They will look the same way 100's of years after you loose them. They will get fine scratches because that you pick them up with dirt on them.

 

Well, you can't argue with PCGS....or can you???

 

Very nice find. Wow.