Hi! I am new to coin talk and this is my first post. I have a coin in my collection, an 1892-O (photo attached), which I have always been quite happy with. I think it has good luster and good eye appeal, and I believe the strike is decent for this issue. There are some parallel scratches on the face of Ms. Liberty, however, and I have always wondered what they might be from. They are not very distracting when you view the coin in normal lighting, but are quite apparent in my photographs. Does anyone have any thoughts on what could have caused these? Thanks!
They used square point shovels on them They used square point shovels on them when bags burst open or they were on the vault floor - I have heard that this was one method of gathering them up there was so many in so many differnet places at one time, really.
Could they be scratches from an album? Albums like Dansco's have those plastic covers that slide back and forth to put the coin in. I know those can scratch the coin. This looks a little heavy for that...but it could be.
Welcome, KP ! Hope you enjoy the board. Ya know, I have the same problem with Morgans. Minor scrapes look much worse in the photo than in hand.
Ben may well be correct as to the source, but without question the coin has suffered post mint damage.
Doesn't matter, it is still post mint damage. Anything that happens to a coin from the moment it leaves the coin press is post mint.
They usually aren't that bad but I have seen hundreds of dollars with these same type of marks... I think just from being stored in a bag
Back in the day they were required by law to purchase so much silver and make so many silver dollars that all the coiffers to hold them become unbearably full. All mints / post offices / any place they could store them were overflowing with these silver dollars. Still at the end of the year inventory still had to be done so these mint employees were not too kind to these 'defenseless' silver dollars and moved and bagged them with out any care. They even finally came up with a machine to count and bag these buggers which left their unique signature on the sides of some od these coins 'machine marks' ... In this case it could be .... Count - shovel - bag - count - shovel - bag. At one time I actually saw a picture of a US Mint Employee ( Or bank employee ) with shovel in hand on inventory day ... Still a nice coin though - thanks for sharing
