My wife brought home a gold colored, sandblasted lookin 1971 kennedy half last night. She said she paid a dollar for it, to some girl that wanted change at the store. The cashier was going to give her 2 quarters for it, but when my wife offered a dollar, she took the money and ran. My wife caught a strange look and the cashier told her "You DO know that you just paid a dollar for fifty cents, right?" My wife just said "yup, look at it!" It looks like a proof or something but reverse sand blasted,On the obverse,it looks like the head is masked off and the rest was 'blasted. The reverse looks like the nickel layer is missing and can only be seen by the letters, the rest looks like highly polished copper, no corrosion at all.
This reminds me of my very first coins which I got as a kid, and kept from circulation without knowing anything about them or their value at the time: A 1969 "silver" half. When I got it in change I thought, "wow! this half looks different, let me save it!" I found out about the silver halfs years later. Same with S and P nickels - "what's this funny lettering?" a 1944 S Mercury dime and a 1935F silver certificate. I still have these as the backbone of my small collection.
Those marks are just spots. Perfectly round spots. It now looks like it was held in place by 4 prongs around the rim. The gold part in the back looks like it showed through and the nickel around the lettering rubbed against whatever it was mounted to.
