I have bought the book by Ken Potter 'Strike it Rich' and have a question. I read about the notching on coin's letters dates, etc, I would like to know if this is common and is it noticeable on the coin? Can one only see it with a loupe? It just seems like it would be so hard to see and maybe I have past them up in coin rolls. I have searched this and find no help. Any comments would be appreciated
It depends, sometimes you can see the "split serifs" (notching) with the naked eye and sometimes you can't. More than anything, knowing in advance what coins you should be looking at to begin with is important. Then you need to make sure that you are using an incandescent light (75-100w) with no other light source in the room. Look at them with the naked eye first. And if you need to, then use a glass. In most cases 5x will be plenty strong enough. But in some cases you might need 10x. But if you are familiar with your coins, you'll know in advance which ones you will need 10x to see.
