I purchased this one a few weeks ago and wanted to bump it off a couple heads here. Its a 1920 Buffalo Nickel, That I believe is from an overpolished die. However, there are a couple of interesting points to consider... Usually overpolishing was done as a remedy for clashed dies, and in this case the reverse has no indication of being clashed or abraded in the normal areas and additionally the raised areas around the Indian's profile are very smooth, with no "fine" tool marks that are usually left in the dies as a result of the polishing, even with a 20x loupe and a 60X microscope. I don't know what else could have caused it. Maybe the reverse die was replaced? It created a neat error/variety where there is raised areas around the Indians Face and profile and also created a gap in the connection of the upper nose to the rest of his face and created a "tear drop" shaped pool in front of his eye. I've included a few photos to illustrate it. Any thoughts or opinions are welcome. -Daniel
Dan: The die may have been pulled and polished, and then paired with a different die for production. They didn't (I believe) keep the die pairs together for life. (See also Overton, and die marriages.)
