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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;lordmarcovan, post: 2720107, member: 10461&quot;]The star graffito, while unfortunately detrimental to the coin&#039;s value, is interesting.&nbsp; I find myself tempted to imagine someone of Royalist sympathies adding it to poor Louis&#039; face sometime after his date with the guillotine; sort of as a superstitious gesture- a posthumous blessing, perhaps- in other words, the opposite of a &quot;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damnatio_memoriae" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damnatio_memoriae" rel="nofollow"><i>damnatio memoriae</i></a>&quot;.</p><p><br /></p><p>Of course that&#039;s entirely speculative, and there&#039;s no way to tell.</p><p><br /></p><p>I have seen <i>damnatios</i> on French and other coins- scratches and deep cuts on the necks of kings who were beheaded in real life.&nbsp; Napoleon III (though not beheaded) seems to have gotten quite a bit of numismatic satire after he lost the Battle of Sedan to the Prussians in 1870.</p><p><br /></p><p>But what the original meaning of that star is on this Louis XVI coin is, who knows.&nbsp; Could be somebody was just bored and felt like scratching a star into the coin.&nbsp; But it&#039;s fun to think about, and I&#039;d rather have a coin with interesting graffiti like than than some plain old scratches.</p><p><br /></p><p>Damaged or not, it&#039;s a neat piece.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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