I know it’s a very rough looking, but I bought this with a lot of other junk coins. What’s your professional opinions? There’s so much damage that it could have pushed the metal together to make it look like a five, but it doesn’t look like a five to me.
I think it's damaged beyond anyone being able to say for sure, but if there are any die markers that could survive that kind of punishment and provide confirmation, @KBBPLL is probably your guy...?
I can tell you that it appears to have the correct obverse and reverse hub types for 1892-1899. The N is touching the ribbon and the inner ear is empty on the obverse; the vein in the left-most leaf on the reverse is correct. So it is unlikely to be counterfeit (most I've seen have the wrong reverse type). I haven't studied 1895-O so I don't know if there's something definitive to see here. Just poking thru PCGS images, the mint mark position and counter-clockwise rotation seems to match the most common reverse die. But that doesn't help much, because 1897-O has a similar location and rotation. There is a date position for 1895-O where the 5 touches the bust, so that aspect is a possible match. But we don't have much to go on - we can't see the designer initial or denticles to line anything up with, and the metal in the last digit is badly distorted. So is it a 5 or a 7, or? I can't say for sure one way or the other. The top left of the last digit does appear to be squared off, so there's that. PCGS authenticated this one, so maybe there's hope. It would probably be the most horrid example known.
Wow that’s a lot of info. I’m impressed. Since the coin is trashed. I wonder if i dip it if it would show anything u def the black crud?
It doesn't look like it. But as a preview, try shining a very bright light almost parallel to the surface. That'll make any relief around the date more visible. Edit: See my post and photos here for an example.
