People always have trouble telling the difference between wear and strike... Well here is one of the poorest struck coins I have ever seen. This is extreme. This coin still has quite a bit of luster and overall I grade it AU50. The marks you see in the flat spots were marks on the planchet before it was struck and are almost always wiped out by the strike.
wow! So if you send it to PCGS, will they note that its a weak strike and is it possible they over look that and grade it VF?
They will probably not note anything... and it's very possible they will grade it lower... but that is definitely a strike issue.
That is a really weak strike. Sometimes its hard to tell the difference, but I think in this case because it is so extreme its easier to tell.
So, does the weak strike make it more desirable since its rarier or does it really just lower the value?
I agree Matt it is a good coin to learn from. It is a an excellent example to see the difference between a weak strike and wear because it is so easy to see on this coin. Those flat spots that Matt mentions, blow the pics up to full size and look at them closely. See how they have a rough surface texture, and no I don't mean the planchet marks. I mean the areas around and in between the planchet marks. The surface is rough and bumpy. If those flat areas had been caused by wear then the surface would instead be smooth. Usually on a weakly struck coin we only have small areas to look at it so it is harder to identify the difference I speak of, but it can still be identified if you look close. And it is important that we learn to tell the difference between what a weak strike looks like so we can tell whether or not a coin actually was weakly struck or if it instead has wear. In many cases people will incorrectly attribute small flat spots as being due to a weak strike when they were really caused by wear. And when they do that they over-grade the coin. Of course sometimes they under-grade the coin because they attribute the flat spots to wear when they were really caused by a weak strike. There is also typically a color difference between a spot that was weakly struck and a spot of wear. Wear spots will be slightly darker. But the difference is subtle and hard to see for that reason. But that too can be identified if you take the time to learn to recognize it when you see it. And quite often a weakly struck spot will be right next to or alongside a wear spot, that is when they are easiest to see for the trained eye, but at the same time the most difficult to see for the untrained eye simply because they are side by side. There is one additional clue beyond what I have already mentioned to help distinguish a spot of wear from a weakly struck spot when they are side by side. The spot with the wear will be ever so slightly higher than the spot with the weak strike. So remember, 3 things - texture and color, and slightly higher when side by side. learn to see that you'll always be able to tell one from the other.
