Cool heavily polished war nickel. Fields are very reflective. Not sure if it would make PL or how often they give out the designation but it's a neat one. Looks like they were trying to remove cracks and they really went to town!
Polishing will not make a coin appear proof like. Polishing is damage. Your coin looks like it was polished with a leaf rake.
Yes. Die polishing. Thought it was obvious. And yes, polishing the dies can most def give a LDS coin the PL designation. Aside from fresh dies, it's the only thing that can.
Cool scrubbed dies and you know how I feel about die cracks. As for the PL designation, you could probably send it to MAC for a PL sticker. After checking their website you look to have a shot at 4FS (4 full steps) as well.
Other than the 1942-P, they didn't make any proof war time nickels. Can it still be proof like if there are no proofs for that date/mint?
It can with Morgans as there are tons from San Fran and CC mints, I'm assuming the same is true for any coin at least from NGC since I don't believe PCGS gives the designation for non-Morgans yet (although I seem to remember reading they were considering it? Anyone confirm if that's true?).
Some gold they do, some world coins they will. They generally won't for classic coins. The last I saw they still haven't announced anything but seem to be more open than in the past. I believe they'll consider it with a note if you have one, but until they actually do it on one or make an announcement I would expect it not to happen. If enough people keep letting them know they want them to start they'll eventually start doing it
Looking at this specimen I say it may of been like a first strike off a reworked die . I say this as it looks as if they had reworked the die to get every strike they could because of medal for the war effort was very much in demand. Plus skilled workers were needed more so to build the machines of war more so then anything else. This is a very cool specimen with the lines and die cracks. Die cracks through Jefferson head and scalp are very common,as well as bisecting ones on the war time nickels. Another thing one may take into consideration is the composition of war nickels as to nickel ,copper. A softer medal composition so more strikes per die life.
Probably was struck very near after the dies were scrubbed but every die was probably not reworked to this extent as you suggest. If so we would see many more like this on the market with the high survival rate of mint stare examples.
Not necessarily if that the case what about the 1919 Mercury dime ddo, what only discovered a few years ago almost 100 years after struck and just discovered ?
The difference though is the nickel posted jumps out at you. The dime DDO required someone closely examining it to catch it and those could have easily went their entire life without anyone noticing. Given the war it's possible that the nickels just got used without second thought, but there is a much greater chance of them being saved then the merc as it is much more noticeable
Yes. A coin is proof like when a circulation strike coin exhibits proof-like surfaces, (and usually frosting of devices) but is NOT a proof coin.